


Cantata

by swaps55



Series: Opus [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Biotic Sparring, Canon Divergence, Combat, Found Family, Headaches & Migraines, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Shepard Can't Flirt (But He Tries), Slow Burn, squad goals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:47:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 48,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26701675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaps55/pseuds/swaps55
Summary: The Butcher of Torfan is not what Kaidan expected.~Sam Shepard and Kaidan Alenko, in the years before theNormandy. AKA, the slowest of slow burns.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard
Series: Opus [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719571
Comments: 138
Kudos: 112





	1. What It Is

_So you try to drag your feet down to the bar_  
_When you’re startin' to forget just who you are_  
_And they told you it was written in the stars_  
_But you've never had a chance to look that far_

x

**What It Is**

Kaidan has never even heard of the Docking Station, a poorly named bar on the fringes of Arcturus’ torus ring that is about as far from the actual docking stations as anyone can get. After consulting the station VI and asking around to no avail, he’d finally had to pin down three reluctant enlisted men before getting pointed in the right direction.

Turns out he couldn’t find it because officially it doesn’t actually _have_ a name, other than Bay 6527-R.

He’s heard of these places, unofficially off-limits for officers so the Alliance can conveniently turn a blind eye to soldiers blowing off steam, but he’s never given it much thought. Which he supposes is the point.

He certainly wasn’t expecting to go down this particular rabbit hole at 06:00 to fetch his brand-new XO.

He gets more than a few wary looks when he finally finds the place. Attracting suspicion isn’t unusual, but the amp jack is usually the culprit, not the officer bars.

The Docking Station definitely isn’t where brass hangs out. Instead of soft lighting, prominent tables and piano chords drifting through the air, this place offers blank walls, shadows, and tables tucked deliberately out of sight. The air feels stale, with the slightly sour smell that usually accompanies early morning regrets. The place probably roars at shift changes, but at this hour it’s quiet, sullen, and aside from a trio of servicemen giving him dirty looks at the bar, nearly empty.

Nearly.

The hairs on the back of Kaidan’s neck stand on end as soon as he walks in the door. Biotic fields are like fingerprints – every biotic affects the gravity well differently. Get close enough to someone else’s aura and you feel it under your skin.

There’s definitely a biotic in here. Instead of fingerprints this field is more like a kick in the teeth. Kaidan rolls his shoulders to shake it off and draws in a deep breath.

His AWOL XO sits at a table in the back. Even hunched low in his seat, shoulders bent and hidden in the shadows, Lieutenant Commander Shepard is hard to miss.

Four months after the bloodbath, Torfan is still a regular in the news cycles. Just yesterday one of the networks aired a feature on the Alliance casualties, plastering Shepard’s face right beside a photo of a corporal with her two kids. _The Butcher of Torfan_ , the reporter had called him, right after a thoughtfully posed question about whether the Alliance would ask him to answer for his actions.

A little late on that one. The inquest had happened two months ago and ended with a medal and a promotion. That’s the Alliance for you.

Every time Shepard’s face flashes across the feeds a chill runs down Kaidan’s spine. He has the kind of stare that can wilt an admiral and the posture of a krogan mercenary looking for a target.

Thankfully, Kaidan hadn’t seen a lick of corona in any of the footage. He could only imagine the collective blood pressure of the Alliance’s PR team. At least it was their problem, and not one Kaidan had to deal with.

Until he’d gotten his orders to report to Captain Oseguera on the _Myeongnyang_ and learned Shepard was his new XO. Upon showing up this morning to report for duty and learning that Shepard was AWOL, it was now very much his problem.

But whatever Kaidan had been expecting from the Butcher of Torfan, this isn’t it.

There’s nothing krogan-like about the soldier sitting at the table. The lethal gaze from the vids is watery and unfocused. The empty bottle in his hand isn’t a gun, but he clutches it like one. When the bartender delivers a fresh one Shepard doesn’t look up, merely pops the top off and takes another quick pull.

This isn’t good.

Kaidan doesn’t know if his own biotic field has quite the presence of Shepard’s, but either way the commander hasn’t responded to Kaidan’s intrusion into the gravity well.

He should have noticed.

Instead Shepard opens and closes his fist, staring at his trembling hand. In the weak light, a sheen of sweat stands out on the commander’s forehead.

Kaidan’s field medic training kicks in. Without combat armor he can’t read Shepard’s biometrics or compare to a baseline, but he’s willing to bet Shepard’s heart rate is higher than it should be. Shock isn’t likely with no acute trauma to speak of. What the…?

Oh. _Panic attack?_

Unpleasant memories of a park bench in Vancouver come to mind. Kaidan shifts his weight.

Shepard leans an elbow on the table and pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers, eyes closed, still gripping the bottle. Kaidan can’t hear the slow, desperate release of breath, but he feels it like a swift kick in the gut.

This isn’t his business. He’s located the XO. He could report it in, follow the chain of command. Potentially damage the career of a decorated officer. Or he could just get Shepard’s attention and inform him the Captain is waiting. Walk away, wash his hands of it, leave it up to Shepard to sink or swim. Or...he could do none of those things.

The park bench had been ten years ago. One glance from a stranger had been all it took to set it off. He’d just wanted a long walk to clear his head, and instead he’d wound up on that bench, unable to breathe, positive he was about to die. In Kaidan’s mind, everyone who looked at him saw only Vyrnnus’ broken neck. He’d been seventeen, alone, and no one had helped him.

It’s a bar instead of a park, a corner booth instead of a bench, and this time Shepard’s the one sitting in it.

_Don’t leave him here._

He takes a deep breath. Here on the edge of Arcturus’ torus ring the gravity well is strong and eager, and responds instantly to his touch.

Shepard's gaze snaps up, finding Kaidan in the space of an eyeblink. The quick, unguarded glance Kaidan gets is raw, real, _roiling_. Then, as if Shepard has switched on shield emitters, it vanishes. The slumped shoulders harden into sharp edges. The desperation in his eyes becomes a directed energy weapon with a target in their sights.

 _This_ is the Butcher of Torfan Kaidan had expected.

"Lieutenant," Shepard acknowledges him. Crisp. Flat. Authoritative enough to wilt a corporal into his boots.

Kaidan isn’t a corporal.

Without giving himself time to think, Kaidan pulls out a chair and sits down across from him. “Sir,” he says amiably. There’s no guarantee Shepard has any idea who he is. Kaidan is banking that he does.

Shepard says nothing in response, only watches him. Waits. No attempt to cover up the situation. Explain it. Defend it. He’s leaving it for Kaidan to decide how to proceed. It’s a test as much as it’s a gamble, and Kaidan has no idea what outcome either of them are hoping for.

 _Extraction,_ he thinks. _Just get him out of here_.

Kaidan picks up a menu that’s seen better days and swipes through it. “This place have a decent breakfast?” he asks.

Shepard’s eyebrow raises slightly.

“Hm,” Kaidan muses. “Everything on this menu is fried, and none of it is pancakes.” He looks up. “I’m starving. I know a place over in the hub that’ll hit the spot. Care to join me?”

Nothing in Shepard’s expression breaks, but he shifts slightly in his seat. “Breakfast.”

Kaidan taps the amp jack on the back of his neck. “Don’t know about you, sir, but I ferret out the best places for a good meal everywhere I go.” His heart pounds a little as he gets to his feet. Some officers are willing to be a little informal with their subordinates. Others aren’t. He would have pegged Shepard as the former under normal circumstances, but these are decidedly not normal circumstances.

He gives the commander an expectant look. “You in?”

Shepard’s shrewd gaze pins Kaidan down like a spike through his foot. Eventually his chair scrapes against the floor as he gets to his feet. Shepard gestures expectantly with his hand, waiting for Kaidan to lead the way.

So Kaidan does.

~

Kaidan’s not lying about the pancakes. There’s a diner tucked into the hub near Kaidan’s favorite spot for watching ships come and go, and it’s open three watches. It’s notably more populated than the Docking Station, and they get notably more stares as they walk in. The sudden attention shines a flashlight on the precariousness of their situation. Kaidan caught a very public, polarizing figure in a weak moment. This could go very poorly for both of them. Careers have been lost over less.

Shepard breezes past the curious eyes like they don’t exist. Everyone in his path naturally shifts out of it, as if Shepard is a magnet with the wrong polarity.

The hostess seats them at a booth in the back corner, giving Shepard nervous glances the entire way. He offers her a brief but unexpectedly charismatic smile when she hands him a menu. Kaidan’s anxiety levels come down a notch - but just one.

“So, pancakes, huh,” Shepard says when she leaves. He wipes his brow with the back of his hand, then shoves it out of sight under the table. He’s not quick enough to hide the tremor.

“Not quite like mom used to make,” Kaidan replies. “But for a few million light years from home, they’ll do.”

There’s that piercing gaze again. Kaidan shifts under it. “Sir, don’t tell me you’re a waffle guy.”

Something akin to amusement flickers briefly past Shepard’s face. Kaidan releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

Shepard shrugs one shoulder as he looks down at the menu. “I’ve been told I don’t have a sophisticated palate.”

“That sounds serious,” Kaidan says. “Let me guess. Long term exposure to MREs?”

“A spacer’s best friend.”

Kaidan groans. “So it is serious. Ok. First step on the road to recovery is a full stack drowned in maple syrup.”

“Well,” Shepard says, with a deferring gesture. “Far be it from me to disagree with the expert.”

The waitress returns with two glasses of water. Kaidan makes good on his word by ordering a full stack, with a side of bacon and eggs for good measure. Shepard orders the same.

After she leaves, the commander nearly drains his glass dry. For just a moment, he closes his eyes, inhaling once. He opens his eyes on the exhale, resting his elbows on the table with hands loosely clasped. When he refocuses his gaze, he hones in on Kaidan with the level of scrutiny one might give a combat scanner. _Tactical assessment_.

Kaidan takes a sip of water. “You know, I trained with a biotic who wiped out a full stack, plate of hash browns, half a pound of bacon and at least a half dozen eggs in one go, and came back to bug the chef an hour later.”

There’s a hint of a smirk at the corner of Shepard’s mouth. “Must have put on a good show, then.”

“As I recall, his great claim to fame was throwing his desk through a glass widow. Decent show of power, but rather lacking finesse.”

Shepard raises an eyebrow. “Hate to disappoint you, but I don’t think you’ll see the word ‘finesse’ show up on any of my personnel records, unless it’s preceded by the phrase ‘lack of.’”

Kaidan chuckles in spite of himself. “Fair enough. You’ll just have to warn me if the table gives you the hairy eyeball.”

“I can see the newsfeeds now,” Shepard says dryly, then adopts a mock version of the scowling pose Kaidan recognizes from the vids. “‘Butcher of Torfan destroys innocent table with his mind, declares it was harboring a batarian.’”

There’s surprising good humor buried in his tone, but it doesn’t put Kaidan at ease. The reference to Torfan is a test. He’s sure of it. All the talk about Shepard focuses on his brutal combat tactics, not this kind of nuanced reconnaissance. _Choose your steps carefully_.

Kaidan picks up a bottle of syrup. “Imagine the retraction when they find out the table’s real sin was maple _flavored_ syrup instead of the real thing.”

“Nah,” Shepard says. “Doesn’t fit the narrative.”

Kaidan meets his all-seeing stare. “Suppose that goes to show you there’s a lot more to the truth than what you see, doesn’t it?”

Shepard’s face remains maddeningly opaque. “Usually,” he replies.

There’s another pause. Kaidan takes the easy path to fill it. Whatever Shepard’s reputation, it’s been a while since Kaidan has had the chance to talk to another biotic. The disruption Shepard’s field creates in the gravity well makes him feel a little less…alien.

“So are you L2 or L3?” He’s fairly certain he knows the answer. The L2 died with BAaTT, and Shepard definitely hadn’t been on Jump Zero. The awkward limbo between the implosion of Conatix and the rise of the Ascension Project meant a number of biotics had slipped through the cracks, Shepard presumably among them. But here he is, fully functional, and with an N4 designation no less.

“Let’s call it L2.5,” Shepard replies. He taps the side of his head. “Less restrictions than the L3, but fewer side effects than the L2s. Design was never actually approved before the L3s hit and had better safety records. I’m told I was the lucky beneficiary of an experiment that didn’t blow up in everyone’s face.”

Kaidan grimaces a little. “Not sure how lucky that is, but sure.”

“You have side effects?”

“Migraines,” Kaidan replies, and holds his hands apart for emphasis. “Big ones.”

Shepard offers a brief nod of sympathy. “Surprised the Alliance didn’t try and refit you when you joined up.”

Kaidan shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “They offered. I declined. It’s...complicated.”

There’s that shrewd stare again. For someone who hadn’t even noticed the presence of another biotic less than an hour ago, Shepard is proving unsettlingly perceptive.

“Most things about being a biotic are,” Shepard says finally. “Fun being the guinea pig generation, isn’t it?”

“It’s a riot,” Kaidan says darkly. “Right down to the uniforms showing up on your doorstep when you get home from school.”

Shepard’s tone takes on a sharp edge. “You were coerced?”

“You weren’t?” There’s more bitterness in it than Kaidan intended.

Shepard tilts his head, thoughtful. “I suppose when your parents are career military, it feels a lot more...voluntary. But I don’t really know what the response would have been had I said no.”

“If you don’t mind me asking...where did you train?”

Shepard steeples his fingers. There’s little trace of the tremor now. The corner of his mouth curves slightly. Not quite a smile, but there’s something reassuring about it nonetheless. “It’s complicated.”

Kaidan does smile. “Fair enough.”

The waitress returns with their food. Shepard eyes the plate, then looks up at Kaidan. “You better be right about these pancakes, Lieutenant.”

Kaidan holds up a hand. “I wouldn’t let you down, sir.”

Shepard holds his gaze a little longer. “Ok,” he says finally, and digs in.

~

For someone as stern and imposing as he appears, Shepard is a surprisingly good listener. And not simply willing to sit in silence while Kaidan talks. He _listens._ Asks questions. Takes interest in an offhand comment and points Kaidan at it until his curiosity is satisfied. Kaidan tells him about growing up in Vancouver. Boot camp. Officer training. The discrimination he’d dealt with from a handful of officers during his last tour on the _Delhi,_ which had created tensions between the navy and marine divisions on board _._

They talk for over an hour, though Shepard proves just as adept at deflecting questions as he is at asking them. Aside from his comment about growing up on ships, Kaidan learns little about him. Each time he tries to break through the veneer with a carefully placed question, Shepard somehow spins it around so that Kaidan is the one giving an answer.

Being the focus of the commander’s attention is not for the faint of heart.

Not once does their current assignment come up. Nor does Torfan, and Kaidan takes a wide berth around anything that might lead to what landed Shepard in the bar. He’s already pushing the limits when it comes to socializing with a superior officer. There are some boundaries he’s not prepared to cross.

Their plates are empty and the coffee on their third refill before Shepard grimaces and checks his omnitool. A message notification flashes.

“I assume Captain Oseguera’s patience is about run through,” he says with a scowl. “Impressed she waited this long.”

Kaidan pulls out his own omnitool. “I’ll report in, sir, I’m-”

Shepard holds up his hand, mouth softening into that not-quite-a-smile that’s so surprisingly disarming. “You’ve done enough. I’ll handle it.” He gets to his feet, nods towards the empty plates. “Pancakes, huh?”

“They never let me down,” Kaidan affirms.

~

The hull of the _Myeongnyang_ gleams through the observation window just outside the airlock. Kaidan stops to take it in. He’s served on a handful of ships now. Something about that first glimpse feels...powerful, somehow. A prelude of things to come.

Shepard comes to a halt, watching him curiously.

“Kind of a ritual,” Kaidan explains. “Don’t worry, I’m right behind you.”

But instead of continuing on to the airlock the commander comes to stand beside him, gazing out the window. The gravity well is weaker here in the hub than it was out in the ring, but a soft whisper still shimmies across his skin as Shepard idly tests it.

“Sir,” Kaidan says hesitantly. “I hope this isn’t out of line. If it is, just say the word.”

Everything about Shepard tenses, though his eyes never leave the window and he doesn’t speak. Permission to blunder on ahead, Kaidan supposes.

“My first experience with the Alliance ended...poorly.” Kaidan looks down at his hands, twists his fingers. “Took me a while to get my head on straight. Before I came back, one of the things I had to learn was...what people see is probably always going to be at odds with who I am. And that’s out of my control. The important thing is that _I_ know. Sometimes it’s easy to forget.”

Shepard says nothing for a long time, instead rocks back and forth on his heels a few times. When he finally turns his expression is, not surprisingly, inscrutable.

“See you on board, Lt. Alenko.”

“Aye, sir.” When Shepard is a safe distance away Kaidan turns to watch him go. This isn’t the start he expected to his tenure on the _Myeongnyang_. Somehow he gets the feeling that serving with Shepard is going to make the unexpected seem routine.

He pushes back from the railing and heads for the ship.


	2. Million Little Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan pulls his punches. Shepard wants to know why. 
> 
> AKA, A mad scientist, a marksman with the galaxy’s shortest fuse, an overeager frat boy, the Butcher of Torfan, a space wizard, and a goat all walk into a bar.

_I'm tired of being in my head_   
_I'm tired of being left alone_   
_Can you teach me how to breathe it in?_

[x](https://open.spotify.com/track/6Lqqc9jcrXUSxiDA5jle1j?si=jdtNEYuSTNSAx0m0gaupYQ)

**Million Little Pieces**

_The_ Myeongnyang _Marines: Private Muriel Aslany, Corporal Kara Pendergrass, and Service Chief Clay Beaudoin. Artwork by the fabulous[theheroofoakvale](https://theheroofoakvale.tumblr.com/)._

Kaidan tilts his head as he plugs his amp into the port at the base of his neck, then flexes his fingers. The gravity well jumps as he calls to it, a tiny flare of dark energy pooling in his palm.

Corporal Kara Pendergrass watches with unconcealed curiosity from her spot on the floor of the _Myeongnyang’s_ gym. She sits with her arms draped on a bench behind her, legs askance. Sweat drips down her forehead, PT shirt all but soaked through. Kaidan doesn’t look much better. Shepard doesn’t exactly take it easy on them in the mornings. Nothing like going nine rounds before that first cup of coffee.

“Does it hurt?” Pendergrass asks. “The biotics, I mean. Does using them hurt?”

In the short time Kaidan has known Pendergrass, he’s determined that when she’s actually willing to speak up she plows right through any internal filters and says exactly what’s on her mind.

Maybe that’s why it takes him a moment to answer. No one’s ever asked him the question.

“No,” he says at last. “Not really. Hard to describe how it feels.”

“Like being an alien?” she prods, grasping half-heartedly for a water bottle that’s just out of reach.

He bristles a little, the follow up hitting a little too close to the mark. But the look on her face is earnest, not derisive. Of the _‘Yang’s_ marine detail, she’s the only one who hasn’t shown any wariness towards the amp jack.

“Maybe a little,” he admits.

She gives the water bottle a petulant scowl, decides moving to get it isn’t worth it and sags deeper against the bench. She looks too young to have made it through officer school. The _Myeongnyang_ is her first posting, and she sure as hell doesn’t fit the mold of an officer. But two advanced engineering degrees and a commendation from a salarian explosives squad she’d embedded with for six months say otherwise.

The gym is cozy but well-appointed, and Lieutenant Commander Shepard abuses every inch of it. Aslany and Wong continue sparring on the mat in the center of it. Judging from Aslany’s yelling, Wong’s heart isn’t in it. So far Aslany is the only one Shepard hasn’t been able to get to the bottom of, and it’s not for lack of trying.

Kaidan tosses Pendergrass a fresh towel, but instead of drying off some of the sweat she sets it on the ground and uses it as a pillow, arms flopped out to the sides.

“The LC’s a dick,” she says, staring at the ceiling, curiosity apparently sated for the moment.

Kaidan glances over at Shepard, who works one-on-one with Service Chief Beaudoin in the opposite corner. Beaudoin’s handled Shepard’s barking better than any of them so far, but this morning even his easy-going expression looks a little strained.

“He’s good,” Kaidan says, taking a long drink from his own water bottle. He badly wants to hit the showers and get on with the watch, but Shepard had asked him to wait.

“He’s a sadistic _dick_ ,” Pendergrass insists. “Why do I need to be able to punch people when I can just shove a grenade down their pants?”

“You could ask him,” Kaidan says, amused.

She cackles. “Nah, I’m fine if he just keeps kicking Beaudoin’s ass.”

“Aren’t you on duty in fifteen minutes?”

“Do I have to start my shift if I’m dead?”

Kaidan raises an eyebrow. “You seem pretty alive to me.”

“Feel pretty dead.” She flops an arm, as if it somehow proves her point.

“On your feet, marine,” Kaidan tells her.

She grumbles. He helps her up, even hands her the elusive water bottle. “Remember to report to me at 11:00 so I can get a base read on your biometrics and program the medical exoskeleton on your hardsuit.”

“Yes, medic,” she says with a sigh.

“Alenko!” Shepard barks from the other side of the room.

“Good luck,” Pendergrass says over her shoulder as she flees. “Remember. There’s no problem a well-placed grenade can’t solve.”

Private Aslany gives Kaidan a curt nod as he walks past her before tugging on a pair of gloves with her eyes on the punching bag. Beaudoin and Wong have struck up conversation as they towel themselves off and pay Kaidan no attention. Shepard, however, watches his every move with laser focus.

Gooseflesh rises on his arms when he gets close enough to feel the commander’s biotic field. He’s still not used to sharing a space with another biotic. It’s more invasive than he expected. Reminds him too much of BAaT.

“Sir,” Kaidan says.

Shepard regards him carefully. They’ve spoken little since their first meeting on Arcturus two weeks ago. Not that Kaidan expects him to be warm and chummy after that unanticipated introduction, but Shepard has been far more aloof than he anticipated after conversing over pancakes for an hour.

Maybe he’d made a huge mistake.

“You take your amp out when you spar,” Shepard says at last.

Kaidan’s expression turns wary. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

“I don’t know,” Shepard says, draping a towel around his neck and using one edge to mop the sweat off his brow. “You tell me.”

“No. I don’t view it as a problem.”

Shepard nods once, expression shrewd. Too shrewd. “Ok. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”

Shepard turns away from him to grab a water bottle and dig something out of his locker, Kaidan all but forgotten, the issue apparently dealt with. If there’d really been one in the first place.

There is an issue. And it hasn’t been dealt with.

~

Kaidan no longer has to remind Mess Sergeant Navarro his calorie allotment is higher than the rest of the crew. The ship’s cook just starts prepping his tray the moment Kaidan walks into the mess.

“Two biotics on the same ship,” Navarro comments as he dishes out the mashed potatoes. “At least you eat like one.”

Kaidan raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t take the bait. Nearly everyone is under the assumption that because he and Shepard have mutated nervous systems in common, Kaidan can sate their curiosity on the infamous XO. Of course, most are interested in a lot more than Shepard’s eating habits.

Though Kaidan can’t help a little curiosity, too. Shepard rarely dines with the crew. Kaidan doesn’t have any idea when he eats, though he’s got to do it sometime. It took a few blood sugar crashes on Jump Zero before Kaidan finally learned to take his biotic metabolism seriously.

Not a mystery he’s going to solve tonight. Shepard isn’t here.

The rest of the marine detail is, though. Aslany and Wong sit across from Beaudoin at a table, while Pendergrass waits for her tray. As Kaidan approaches, Aslany pushes a chair out for him with her foot in what he’s learning is her customary welcome. She’s not much for words, but Beaudoin and Wong are more than willing to fill any silences she leaves them. As Kaidan sits down across from her, Wong continues an animated tale involving an asari and a vorcha that Kaidan is already wishing he’s not part of.

“They look like hairless cats,” Beaudoin interrupts.

Wong scrunches his face in confusion. “What?”

“The vorcha,” Beaudoin explains. “They look like hairless cats.”

“Did you not hear the part about the asari popping his skull like a _grape_ with her magic _space powers_?” At least Wong has the decency to give Kaidan an uneasy look when the comment is out of his mouth.

Beaudoin shrugs, leaning back in his chair until the front legs tip up. “I like cats.”

Pendergrass flops down in the vacant seat on the other side of Aslany, tray hitting the table with a clatter that draws the attention of most everyone in the mess. “That how it works, boss?” she asks Kaidan. “Poppin’ skulls like grapes?”

Kaidan shakes his head. “No. Not how it works.”

Aslany eyes him. He can almost hear the gears turning in her head. She thinks a lot more about what she says than Pendergrass does, but cares less about what comes out of her mouth.

“What’s it feel like to get punched with dark energy?” she asks.

Kaidan swirls the mashed potatoes with his fork. “It’s not magic,” he replies. “It’s just altering mass.”

“So you throwing me across a room with your mind wouldn’t feel any different than Beaudoin shot putting me,” Aslany says, disappointed.

“He’d do it harder,” Beaudoin corrects. “I can only heave 70 kilos of muscle so far, even in a combat suit.”

A sly smile crosses Aslany’s face, and Kaidan thinks Beaudoin might be the first person to successfully compliment her without getting slugged.

“What about the other thing?” Wong presses.

“I can’t actually pop skulls, sorry,” Kaidan replies. The chicken is a little dry tonight. It’s also a little heavy on rosemary and light on pepper.

“Okay, fine, but I read somewhere biotics can do more than just throw things around.”

Pendergrass bites into an apple. “You mean spatial distortion.”

Everyone at the table looks at Kaidan.

“Shifting mass effect fields,” he says reluctantly. “Biotics can learn to create alternating fields that will rip an object apart.”

“Can you do that?” Pendergrass asks eagerly.

He takes another bite of chicken, chewing thoughtfully before replying.

“Yes.”

“So what does _that_ feel like?” Aslany asks.

Kaidan sets his fork down and shifts in his seat. The question brings up bad memories, but at least gives him the chance to set them straight rather than confront the sensationalized version they’d inevitably concoct on their own. Like popping skulls.

“Ever heard of the Thermal Grill Illusion?” he asks.

Three heads shake. The fourth – Pendergrass – bobs vigorously.

“Expose your skin to hot and cold stimuli at the same time and it confuses your temperature receptors,” Kaidan explains. “Even if neither temperature is extreme, your body reacts like it is. It’s…painful. Shearing mass effect fields feel a little like that.”

The marines all exchange glances.

“Take it that’s firsthand experience talking,” Beaudoin finally says.

Absently Kaidan rubs his arm. He thinks of BAaT. Thinks of Vyrnnus. Thinks of bloody noses, parched throats, rumbling stomachs and the burn of a warp field chewing him up from the inside.

“Yes.”

~

He wakes up before the alarm set for 01:00 the way he has virtually every night for almost eight years. As he has done every night for almost eight years, he lies still and looks at the ceiling – or the bunk above him in this case – and thinks about staying in bed.

Just like every night for almost eight years, he doesn’t.

~

Some nights, the solitude of an empty gym, the freedom of the quiet and stillness, when it’s just Kaidan and the gravity well and a wash of static under his skin, is like slipping into a warm bath. His corona flares bright, a silent torch crackling in the quiet, the only actual sounds the grunts of his own exertion. It’s often the small things that require the most effort. Throw and snare the glass without breaking it. Move it a few inches here. A few inches there. One precision move after another. It’s about discipline. It’s about control.

Some nights he doesn’t stay at it for long. Half hour, hour at most, enough to fine-tune and stay loose, keep the skills sharp.

But not tonight.

Tonight he thinks of Vyrnnus and the snap of bone, that phantom, shearing pain that still lingers in his brain even though it’s long left his skin. Tonight he works. Tonight he _vents._ The skeletons he carried back from Jump Zero are mostly dead and buried, but every now and then one pushes aside the dirt and seeks out fresh air.

He won’t stop until it’s buried again.

It’s not until his blood sugar plummets and blood drips from his nose that he notices it’s 03:00. He needs a full meal, but Shepard’s early morning sparring session is only two hours off, so instead it’s a ration bar and a packet of juice before tumbling back into his rack.

He’ll regret all of it in the morning, but for now, there’s fresh dirt on the grave.

~

Kaidan is late to report to the gym.

Beaudoin kicks him out of bed, but his hands shake as he changes and he’s pretty damn sure he has a fever. As he leaves crew quarters he has to steady himself on the door frame to stop the world from spinning. He hasn’t let his electrolyte balance slip like this in years – especially outside of combat – but this morning if he doesn’t do something about it before reporting in he’s going to wind up a puddle on the floor.

Shepard watches him slink into the gym with that all-seeing gaze, and is still able to dodge Aslany’s jab like she delivered it in slow motion. Kaidan pops his amp out with a soft snick and stores it in his locker, wordlessly picking up the rotation to spot Pendergrass’ bench press.

“Surprised he hasn’t murdered you yet,” the red-headed corporal grunts as she pushes the weight back up. She wobbles, swears, exhaling slowly as she lets it come back down.

“Day’s just getting started,” Kaidan replies. The dressing down is coming. He’s as sure of that as he is Shepard isn’t going to let the absent amp go.

Forty minutes later he sits on a bench, gulping down more water and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Alenko,” comes the harsh bark from across the gym. Kaidan rises to his feet.

“Nice knowing ya, boss,” Pendergrass says as she files out with the others, en route to the crew deck to hit the showers and the galley.

Shepard’s icy gaze hardly blinks as Kaidan comes to a stop in front of him, hands behind his back, shoulders stiff, as if it might help him ward off the coming rebuke.

It doesn’t.

“Sir.”

“How the hell can I depend on you if you don’t show up?”

“Sir—”

“Don’t fucking answer that question,” Shepard snaps. Kaidan falls silent. “I’m training this team for combat. This isn’t some pushover assignment. The captain is going to send us into hot zones. Soon. This is a good group of kids, but they’re _kids_ , and they need to know you have their back. You didn’t just blow me off this morning, you blew _them_ off. Great fucking example to set right out of the gate.”

Kaidan swallows, but holds his chin high. The irony of Shepard chewing him out for being late when just two weeks ago Kaidan had fished him out of a bar for being AWOL is almost more than he can stand.

“Being a biotic doesn’t give you a pass when it comes to the rules. Especially not when you’re reporting to me. Show the fuck up on time or find another post. Got it?”

Kaidan nods. “It won’t happen again, sir.”

Shepard nods. “See that it doesn’t.”

Yeah. The pancakes had probably been a mistake.

~

Kaidan takes it easy for a few nights. He still gets up to practice – he always gets up to practice – but he keeps the sessions shorter, less taxing. There is such a thing as overwork, and Kaidan’s not blind enough to realize he’s dangerously close to it.

Besides, if he doesn’t get a handle on his sleep schedule soon the price of his late-night escapes to the gym are going to get even higher.

Before BAaT he’d slept like the dead. Maybe it was just a teenage brain thriving off ten or more hours a night, maybe not, but ever since leaving Jump Zero he might get six on a really good night. The grueling sparring sessions had actually helped wipe him out – at first – but over the last week or so that’s eroded steadily.

It’s not quite 02:00 when he passes through the mess on the way to crew quarters in search of a quick bite – there’s a stash of peanut butter and crackers that Navarro has started setting aside for him in a drawer – but he comes to an abrupt halt at the sight of Shepard in the galley.

He stands in front of the open fridge, staring at the contents with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Third shift is skeleton watch, and the galley is dim without any activity going on. But the light spilling out from the open door illuminates the scowl on his face.

“Shepard,” Kaidan says in surprise, before he can shut his mouth. The commander looks over his shoulder with a jerk, the scowl shifting to something more neutral.

“Alenko,” Shepard replies. His gaze follows Kaidan as he weaves through the empty tables and around the galley serving station to get at the food supplies. Watching. Waiting to see what he’s going to do.

Another test. Just like on Arcturus. It’s the first time they’ve spoken off-duty since the dressing down Shepard had given him the other day. All of their interactions since have been civil, and once or twice, even encouraging. But always distanced. _What do you want from me?_

“Can’t sleep?” Kaidan asks.

“Missed dinner,” Shepard says, returning to the fridge. “Starting to catch up to me.”

Kaidan opens the drawer with his peanut butter cache and directs Shepard’s attention to it. “I call it the hungry biotic hidden stash. Fully sanctioned by Navarro. Only took him a week to get sick of me rifling through his meticulously catalogued supplies.”

The barest hint of a smile crosses Shepard’s face. “Thanks.”

Kaidan nods. Unlike Arcturus, this time he leaves well enough alone. Instead of asking any follow up questions he slathers some peanut butter onto a few crackers, with plans to inhale them on the way back to the barracks.

But this time Shepard is the one who speaks up.

“I owe you an apology.”

Kaidan tilts his head in surprise.

“I shouldn’t have come down on you so hard the other day,” Shepard goes on. “Not after…”

Kaidan pauses, taking advantage of a mouthful of cracker to give him a few more seconds before responding. “Apology accepted.”

Shepard dips his chin in response, then turns back to the peanut butter. “Seems I’m not the only one having trouble sleeping.”

For half a second he’d thought the apology was a peace offering. Now he’s not so sure it wasn’t just a tactic to take him off his guard.

Forget the morning sparring sessions. _This_ is the real workout.

“Maybe a little restless,” Kaidan says, carefully.

“Get restless often?”

“New ship,” Kaidan says with a guarded shrug. “Still getting a feel for things.”

Shepard eyes the PT shirt ringed with sweat stains. “Sure. Carry on, Lieutenant.”

As he escapes to crew quarters he feels Shepard’s eyes on his back. Just like on Arcturus, he’s almost positive he’s given away something important, something he should have held onto, though what and how much remains to be seen.

~

What Private Aslany lacks in experience she makes up for with dedication, insisting Kaidan try out the modifications she made to his Kessler in full armor so they can field test the target assist and ensure the gun syncs properly with his suit VI. The armory on the ‘ _Yang_ isn’t particularly large, but she has it impeccably organized. The last time Beaudoin left his helmet on the bench instead of in his locker Aslany had let him have it for about two days.

She sets him up with a target and watches him like a hawk as he experiments with the software upgrades to the target assist and the improved sighting. Nothing fundamental, but even the smallest idiosyncrasy can throw off his rhythm. Like the slightly smaller round she programmed the ammo block to shave off.

“Not bad with a pistol,” she observes.

Thankfully she can’t see his smirk though the faceplate of his helmet. “Being a biotic doesn’t mean I get a pass for crap aim.”

“The ultimate double tap,” she says. “Crack their spine against a wall and then nail ‘em between the eyes.”

He grimaces a little. “Something like that. I try to stick to the gun on living targets.”

“Why?” she asks, brow furrowed in confusion. “Your fuckin’ brain is a lethal weapon. And not in the way Pendergrass’ is. You’re the ultimate badass.”

“Depends on your perspective, I guess.” Kaidan hands her the pistol before disengaging the helmet seals and tugging it off. “Slide is sticking.”

She scowls at the weapon. “Damnit, I thought I fixed that.”

He sets the helmet on the bench, making a mental note not to leave it there, and leans against a bulkhead while she disassembles the pistol. Her tongue sticks out of the side of her mouth while she works. Though the glower she normally wears makes her look older, she can’t be more than twenty-two or twenty-three and doesn’t stand any taller than 165cm on a good day. But she’s built like a tank and holds a sniper rifle like it’s an extension of her own arm. Kaidan is fairly certain the team is in good hands with Aslany watching the rear.

“So what’s your perspective, then?” she asks, holding the slide up to the light and scrutinizing it carefully.

“It’s a responsibility,” he says after a moment. “And not everyone is as open-minded about biotics as you are. If my team is afraid of me, doesn’t exactly set the unit up for success.”

“I bet if you tried to pop my skull I’d at least get a round off first,” she says with a shrug. She holds up a hand before he can correct her. “I get it. Not how it works. You know what I mean.”

Kaidan makes a noncommittal sound, torn between pride and concern that if he challenges Aslany’s reflexes she’ll suggest putting it to the test. A biotic demonstration is the last thing he needs.

She makes a few adjustments and then begins reassembling the pistol. Her hands fly, the small curl of her lip suggesting she’s aiming to impress him. She finishes with a confident smile and hands it back to him. “Try that.”

He holds it up, aiming down the sight at a target on the opposite end of the room. “Better.”

Her eyes narrow.

“It’s good,” he assures her. “Thanks. Should we check out the hardsuit sync?”

She nods, taking the pistol back as he grabs the helmet and settles it back over his head and runs a quick systems check on the HUD.

“So what kind of perspective do you think Shepard has?” she asks, holding the Kessler back out to him.

“I thought you weren’t the small talk type,” he mutters.

She shrugs, unperturbed. “Just curious.”

“Biotics aren’t part of some secret club. You know as much about the LC as I do.”

“Yeah, but I ain’t in his petri dish like you are.”

The pistol wavers mid-aim. He frowns and lowers it. “What do you mean?”

“He _watches_ you. Like you’re a grenade that hasn’t gone off yet and he’s estimating the fuse.”

Kaidan stiffens. With a jerk he looks down the sight and plants three simulated rounds in the target. Aces. Aslany nods approvingly.

“You do good work, Private.” He hands her the pistol and starts disengaging the armor plating, effectively ending the conversation. Perhaps sensing she’s touched a nerve, Aslany doesn’t try to start it up again.

Is that Shepard’s problem with the amp? Is he watching Kaidan, waiting to see if the implant goes haywire?

Somehow, that’s not what he expected from Shepard. But he’s been wrong before.

~

That night, Kaidan’s cracker stash is empty save for a few crumbs at the bottom of the drawer. He mutters under his breath, slings his towel around his neck and starts digging through the galley’s supply drawers. Best he can come up with is some pasta noodles, so he heats some water up on the stove and waits for it to boil, tapping his fingers on the counter in irritation.

The dull ache in his head is a harbinger of things to come. Between the new assignment and overworking himself the other night, he’s honestly surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. Time to get to know the ships’ doc.

The hairs on the back of Kaidan’s neck rise.

“What’s that thing they say about watching pots?” a voice says from behind him. Kaidan jumps, swearing when his hand catches the heat from the side of the pot, and turns to find Shepard leaning against the archway separating the galley from the mess.

“Son of a bitch,” Kaidan murmurs, rubbing his hand. Maybe it’s just the way the shadows fall, but Shepard actually looks a little sheepish.

“Sorry,” he says. “I raided your cache. I should have refilled it.”

Kaidan eyes him warily. “Watched pot never boils.”

“Right. That’s the one.” Shepard remains where he is, that directed energy gaze once again holding Kaidan in its crosshairs. “Didn’t expect to run into you again at this hour.”

Kaidan forces a smile, trying to mask his irritation. It’s too late and he’s too tired to undergo another interrogation. The last thing he needs is to encourage the migraine. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Shepard’s brow tightens, as though the response surprises him. A small victory, but Kaidan will take small. The water finally does start to boil, so he drops the pasta in. “Can add more if you’d like some.”

“I…won’t turn you down, actually.” There’s that slightly sheepish look again. It’s the closest thing to a crack in the veneer Kaidan has seen since the pancakes. So he takes a risk. If Shepard wants to cross-examine him, only fair Kaidan gets a shot to do the same.

“You don’t eat much.”

It’s a mistake. Shepard’s expression shifts back to neutral and he pushes off the archway to stand square on both feet. “I get what I need.”

“Unsophisticated palate,” Kaidan recalls.

“Right,” Shepard says with a slight tilt of his head. “MREs will tide me over until they invent a pill I can just swallow and move on with my day.”

“Too bad,” Kaidan says as the water finally boils. “I’m a good cook.”

Shepard nods at the pot of water while Kaidan stirs the pasta noodles. “I’m sure boiling pasta takes a lot of talent.”

Kaidan raises an eyebrow. “So you’re telling me if I decided to walk away and leave this to you, you’ve got it covered.”

The commander shifts his weight, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. He’s full of tells tonight. Interesting, given how inscrutable he is otherwise.

“All right,” he admits grudgingly. “Pasta is probably safer in your hands than mine.”

Kaidan can’t help a smirk.

They fall silent while the pasta cooks, and Kaidan’s in no rush to fill it this time. Shepard doesn’t offer up any small talk either. Instead, the gravity well shimmies unexpectedly. Kaidan inhales sharply and looks over his shoulder.

“Oh. Right,” Shepard says, curious look on his face. “Keep forgetting.”

“What are you…doing?”

“Nothing.” There’s a defensive edge to his voice that wasn’t there a moment ago. He takes a few steps closer, biotic field intersecting with Kaidan’s as he leans on the counter of the galley with that calculating look. Kaidan shifts half a step away from him, covering for it by reaching for a rag to mop up some spilled water. Before Vyrnnus, he’d thrived on the invisible hum generated by the other biotics at BAaT. Now it makes his teeth itch.

_It’s complicated_ , Shepard had said when Kaidan asked where he trained. Not complicated enough that he takes his amp out when he spars, anyway.

“So what else do you cook?” Shepard asks.

Kaidan shrugs a shoulder. “Dabble in a lot of things. Anywhere my dad was stationed we tried to immerse ourselves in the local culinary culture.”

“Both your parents military?”

“Just my dad. But he never left Earth. Retired a few years ago.”

“So sounds like you learned to cook at home and not…” he gestures vaguely.

Kaidan raises an eyebrow. “Not where they taught me how to, as Wong puts it, pop brains like grapes?”

Shepard snorts. “ _That’s_ what he thinks?”

“I set him straight.” He eyes Shepard as he stirs the pasta. “You should join us in the mess here and there, get to know them a little. They’re an interesting bunch.”

He makes a noncommittal sound, expression maddeningly opaque.

“My mom taught me to cook,” Kaidan says, circling back to his question. “My dad’s never developed a knack for it, but he can at least boil some pasta.”

That _almost_ gets a smile.

The gravity well cants again, like Shepard has stuck a finger in a pool of dark energy and just…swirled it around. It’s like someone dribbled ice water down the back of his neck. Kaidan shifts his weight and rubs the bridge of his nose with one hand while stirring the pasta with the other. The migraine’s getting closer. Tomorrow’s going to be a bad day.

Shepard raises an eyebrow. “So is it the headaches that give you insomnia?”

How the _fuck_ is he that intuitive?

“Migraines,” Kaidan corrects, stirring a little more aggressively as he recalls his earlier conversation with Aslany. “I’m stable, Commander, if that’s what you’re asking.” He doesn’t meet Shepard’s gaze.

“Your service record proves that.”

“So what do my sleeping habits matter, then?” _Especially since yours don’t seem to be any better._

Shepard shrugs. “You tell me.”

Kaidan chuckles, then drains the pasta and divides it into two containers. One he hands to Shepard, the other he snaps a lid on to take with him back to crew quarters.

“Good night, Commander.”

~

The migraine lays Kaidan out for about four hours the next day. He struggles through the morning drill, but by the end of it he’s lost enough of the vision in his left eye that Shepard orders him to his rack while his concerned team watches him leave the gym.

It’s far from the worst one he’s been through, but lying in the darkened barracks while his skull beats a rhythm completely out of tune with the tingling nerves that are a side effect of the drug cocktail every physician he sees tries to refine, it certainly doesn’t feel like a high point.

Not much has felt like a high point since coming on board.

He could have sworn that on Arcturus there’d been…a connection of some kind. That hour he and Shepard spent over breakfast felt like it had _meant_ something. But whoever Kaidan had met on Arcturus certainly isn’t the person he’s serving with now. Shepard’s done nothing but dog his heels and play mental chess, in which Kaidan doesn’t know the rules and can’t see the board.

Even before he’d sat down at Shepard’s table that morning, he’d known it might blow up in his face.

He’d just hoped it wouldn’t.

By the time the pounding fades enough to get out of his rack he’s used up and empty, like a hangover he didn’t get to earn. It’s close enough to the end of the watch there’s no point in trying to resume his duties. Two weeks into a cruise with no ground mission on the radar yet, there isn’t anything to be done that can’t wait until tomorrow, anyway.

He’s filling a canteen with water from a station in the mess when the fight breaks out. A thud followed by shouting echoes from the crew locker room. Kaidan caps the canteen and bolts towards it, bursting in to find Wong on the floor, blood gushing from his nose, Aslany standing over him with a coiled fist while Pendergrass watches from a bench with wide eyes.

“What the _fuck_?” Wong bellows from the floor, ignoring Beaudoin’s hand offering to help him up.

“Stand down, marines,” Kaidan orders, when Aslany’s fist moves. She freezes, but doesn’t unclench her fingers.

“Try that shit again and you’ll be shooting left-handed,” she snarls.

“What did I _do?”_ Wong demands.

“You forgot to use your ears,” Beaudoin says amiably, cutting off Aslany before she can tear into Wong again. He waggles his outstretched fingers until Wong finally notices and accepts the hand. “She said not to touch her and you touched her, so she switched to a language more on your level.”

Wong stares at Beaudoin, blood dripping down his chin and onto the floor, then stares at Aslany, whose glare would make a batarian slaver rethink their life choices. “How the hell does a pat on the shoulder justify _that_ , you crazy—”

“Fuck, you do _not_ use your ears, kid,” Beaudoin says with a sigh. He throws an arm around Wong’s shoulders, forcibly turning him towards the exit, then tosses a pointed look at Kaidan, who waves a hand. He’ll handle Aslany. Beaudoin nods and escorts the stunned private out, presumably headed for the medbay.

“You all right?” Kaidan asks Aslany.

She tears her eyes away from Wong’s retreating back and offers a terse nod. “Yeah.” Her eyes narrow, as though steeling for a rebuke. “He deserved it.”

“Never said he didn’t,” Kaidan replies. There’s a long list of jarheads with beef against biotics Kaidan would have loved to put on the floor.

She rubs her fist, her defiance melting into uncertainty. “Most people ask me why I’m so fucking sensitive. And tell me we’re a team, so I should chill the fuck out.”

“Is it my business?” Kaidan asks.

She shakes her head. “No, sir.”

“Okay then,” he says with a nod. “As for the team…he’s part of it, too. You don’t have to compromise yourself to earn your spot any more than he does.”

She relaxes a little.

“How’s your hand?”

“Fine,” she says, shoving it behind her back with a scowl, as though he might try and grab it. “Point is to hurt the _other_ guy.”

“Sure,” Kaidan concedes, “but some people forget that part when they’re angry.”

“Not me.”

“Okay, fair enough,” he says, holding a hand palm-out in surrender. “Care to help me clean up this blood?”

She nods again. “Yeah.”

Pendergrass, who’d watched the entire exchange without a word, eases off the bench, hunts down a towel and hands it to Aslany. “You should teach me to punch like that.”

“I thought all problems could be solved with grenades,” Kaidan says.

“They can,” she replies, then pats her empty pockets. “But every now and then I don’t have one on me.”

Kaidan huffs.

“Hey LT,” Aslany says as they finish cleaning up the mess. “...Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he replies, surprised at how much it means to hear her say it.

Feels like the first thing to go right since he came on board.

~

Once the marines are settled, Kaidan heads for the _Myeongyang’s_ lounge. Space on a frigate may come at a premium, but whoever’s responsible for stocking the lounge took the time to make the most of it. Dart board, holo-powered game table can shift from pool to table tennis, decently stocked bar, couch with a vidscreen and a decent stockpile of vids to choose from. No card table, though, he thinks with a flash of disappointment.

“Not bad,” he says aloud.

The other occupant, Service Chief Clay Beaudoin, makes a sound of agreement as he tosses a dart at the board hanging on the far wall. It lands upper right, inside the double ring.

“Pet project of mine,” he says. “In my experience, a good place to relax makes for more reliable marines.”

The hint of a drawl in his voice makes it easy to believe Beaudoin knows a thing or two about relaxing.

“I see you’ve been on the _Myeongnyang_ for a while now,” Kaidan says, wandering over to investigate the gaming table. At thirty-three, Beaudoin is technically the marine among them with the longest service record, and according to his file he’s spent a lot of that service right here on this ship.

“Capn’ and I are good with hard luck cases,” he replies, picking up another dart and flash-fabricating a tip. “And the ‘ _Yang_ is a refuge for hard luck cases.”

“What do you mean by that?” Kaidan asks with a frown.

“Sometimes promising but misfit Alliance soldiers need a place where they can get their shit straight.” He throws the dart, hitting the triple ring this time. “We’re usually that place.”

The gaming table has an air hockey mode Kaidan makes note of. “So we’re the latest group of misfits.”

Beaudoin glances over his shoulder. There’s something unabashedly charismatic in his gaze.

“Come on, LT, look at this bunch. We’ve got a mad scientist, a marksman with the galaxy’s shortest fuse, an overeager frat boy, the Butcher of Torfan, and a space wizard.”

_Pendergrass, Aslany, Wong, Shepard, and me_ , Kaidan ticks off in his head. It…checks out, if he’s being honest. Though Beaudoin’s implication isn’t exactly a comforting one.

“So what does that make you?”

“A goat,” he says with a lazy grin.

Kaidan frowns. “A goat.”

He chuckles and picks up another dart. “My dad owns a ranch back on Earth. Cows and horses, mostly. When he gets a particularly high-strung horse he sometimes throws a goat in the stall with it. They have a calming influence.”

“Ah,” Kaidan says. “My mom owns horses. But she’s never had goats.”

Beaudoin gestures to himself with a flourish. “Welcome to your first goat.”

Kaidan huffs. “Calming influence, huh? I admit you did a nice job diffusing that row between Aslany and Wong.”

“Thank you, sir,” Beaudoin drawls. “Not my first rodeo. Wong’s an entitled kid who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, and I’d lay bets that Aslany grew up surrounded by people who listened to violence a lot better than they listened to words.”

“So you’re intuitive, too,” Kaidan observes. “Seems like a good quality to have in a goat.”

“I’ve got a maintenance manual somewhere. It basically suggests feeding me on occasion, keeping the coffee pot full, and making sure I have a well-appointed lounge to blow off steam in. Because unlike Aslany, I blow off steam by having _fun_ instead of throwing a punch.”

“Fun’s different for everyone, I guess,” Kaidan says with a small smile.

Beaudoin hands Kaidan a dart. “So what’s fun for you?”

Kaidan turns the dart over in his hand and eyes the dartboard. “Been a while since I thought about it,” he admits.

“See, that’s your first problem.”

“Just my first one, huh?”

Beaudoin chuckles as Kaidan throws the dart. He barely makes it inside the double ring.

“You’re here, so you probably got more than one, but I’m betting the Alliance is less concerned about your baggage than they are the big guy’s.”

_Shepard_. Kaidan shifts his weight.

“You strike me as someone with a good head on their shoulders,” Beaudoin says. “So don’t be surprised when the Captain calls you in for a special debrief after a ground mission.”

Kaidan digests this silently, the sight of Shepard sitting in the bar clutching a bottle racing through his mind. He’s seen no hint of _that_ Shepard since setting foot on the _Myeongnyang,_ but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still there, somewhere beneath that opaque surface.

What _would_ happen the first time Shepard led them into combat?

“Oseguera’s a good captain,” Beaudoin informs him. “She cares about her people, no matter who they are. She’ll give everyone a fair shake, but she doesn’t fuck around, either.”

“Thanks for the intel,” Kaidan says.

Beaudoin hands him another dart. “Welcome to the ‘ _Yang,_ Alenko. Never a dull moment here.”

“At least we have a goat,” Kaidan says with a smile.

Beaudoin grins. “At least you got a goat.”

~

That night, Kaidan wakes up before his 01:00 alarm like usual, but takes a few extra minutes to stare at the bunk above him before getting out of his rack. A full night’s sleep is the best thing he could do for his body right now, but Shepard’s warning they’d see combat soon combined with Beaudoin’ insights push him out of bed anyway. When they go boots on the ground he intends to be ready.

But the gym isn’t empty when he gets there. Shepard throws a few light strikes at the punching bag. Whether it’s Kaidan’s biotic field or just that damned uncanny sense of perception, he stops and straightens when Kaidan enters.

“Starting to wonder if you were going to show.”

“What are you doing here?” Kaidan asks, guarded.

“You pull your punches, and I want to know why.” He moves over to the sparring mat. “This seemed like a good place to start.”

“Are you _spying_ on me?”

Shepard rolls his eyes. “You make it sound like your regular late-night pass through the galley dressed for a workout requires quantum theory to figure out.”

Kaidan folds his arms across his chest.

“You do this every night, don’t you?” Shepard presses. “Come down here and fuck with the gravity well.”

“Yeah,” he says at last, then narrows his eyes. “I don’t pull my punches.”

“All right,” Shepard says, rocking on the balls of his feet before settling into a loose stance. “Show me. Full contact.”

“It’s one in the morning,” Kaidan argues.

“So, what, you were planning on meditating?”

Kaidan regards him with stony silence.

“You’re a biotic,” Shepard says, ticking off fingers. “You trained as a medic, spar without your amp and train when no one’s around. I’m going to take a wild guess and say you hurt someone once and you’re afraid you’ll do it again.”

Kaidan bristles. “With all due respect, sir-”

“-You mean, ‘kiss my ass,’” Shepard corrects.

“Fine, then. Kiss my ass, sir, that’s not information I owe you. Especially when you won’t give me anything in return.”

Shepard regards him with that inscrutable gaze, but says nothing.

“You’ve been interrogating me since I came on board,” Kaidan continues. “Sure, that’s not how you sell it. You make it conversational, like you want to get to know me. But it’s been a one-way street. You’re not giving me anything in return. You want me to trust you, it has to go both ways.”

Shepard considers this with a cant of his head. “So what do you propose?”

“You want to spar? Fine. But every time I land a hit, you’ve got to give me something.”

The corner of Shepard’s mouth turns up in a smirk. “Ok. Deal.”

Kaidan reaches for the back of his neck.

“Leave the amp in.”

“Commander—”

“This isn’t some sadistic power play, Lieutenant. You want to make this about trust? I can’t trust you if you don’t trust _yourself._ Leave the amp. You know what you’re capable of, and how to use it. Besides, you’ll need it. You won’t land a hit hand to hand.”

It’s not a boast. It’s _fact_ , and Kaidan believes him. Spec ops. N4. Kaidan will be lucky if he can touch him even with biotics.

Shepard goes back to the bag while Kaidan stretches and loosens up, which only erodes whatever confidence he might have. Every time he’s watched Shepard in motion it’s been to aid other people. Coaching Pendergrass on form, cajoling more effort from Wong, channeling Aslany’s anger to the right target. Here in an empty gym might be the first time Kaidan’s seen Shepard work _himself._

It’s a hell of a sight.

Every move is fluid, lithe, packed with all of Aslany’s intensity but none of the anger. He’s got more muscle than Kaidan, but it sure doesn’t slow him down. For all the torment he inflicts upon the bag there’s hardly a sheen of sweat on his brow to show for it.

Kaidan draws a deep breath when he settles into a ready stance on the mat. Shepard joins him, the laser focus he’d given the bag now directed solely at Kaidan. Just like in the café on Arcturus, it’s not for the faint of heart.

“Ready?” Shepard asks.

Kaidan nods.

“Then hit me.”

The left jab Kaidan tries first might as well have been thrown in slow motion. Shepard deflects it effortlessly, biotic field hissing as it clashes with Kaidan’s and stands the hairs at the back of his neck on end.

Shepard circles him with a steady gaze, watching his every move but making no advance of his own. _So I can fall on my own sword. Great._ Kaidan tries to slip past him a few times, but each time he’s rewarded with empty space.

Shepard’s _fast,_ with no hint of corona.

“I told you, you aren’t going to get anywhere hand to hand,” Shepard tells him.

“Will you give me a second to find my bearings?”

“Batarian pirate won’t.”

Kaidan strikes while he’s mid-sentence. Shepard hooks his arm, knocks his leg out from under him and pins him to the floor before Kaidan even registers the blow.

“Fuck,” he sputters as Shepard helps him to his feet.

“Gonna have to do better than that.”

“Clearly.”

Kaidan uses every trick he’s learned since joining the marines, but each one ends the same way –Shepard incapacitating him within seconds. On the sixth try Shepard blocks a left jab with ease, catches Kaidans’ fist when it comes up for a hook and lays a forearm to his neck before driving him to the ground.

“I told you to _hit_ me, Alenko, not fumble at me. You’ve got an entire arsenal under your skin you aren’t using.”

Kaidan grits his teeth. “I don’t use dark energy on living targets.”

Shepard’s chuckle befits someone who’s earned the title The Butcher of Torfan. “Thought you didn’t pull your punches.”

“I don’t see you glowing.”

“You’re not exactly worth the effort.”

Kaidan lunges, acting more out of frustration than discipline, and it ends with Shepard flipping him over his shoulder and knocking the wind out of him.

“Hit me,” Shepard demands when Kaidan catches his breath back and climbs back to his feet.

“Commander—”

“ _Hit_ me, Lieutenant. The batarians gave me everything they had and I’m still on my feet. If you manage to take me out right here in the gym, half the Alliance will volunteer to pin a medal on your chest.”

They exchange blows again, again with the same result. Kaidan hits the mat, Shepard helps him up. He wipes sweat out of his eyes, eyeing the commander warily.

It’s all Kaidan can do to keep up, and Shepard looks like he’s just getting started.

Kaidan goes in again, only to get trapped in a headlock. In a fit of frustration he twists a wrist and calls a well of dark energy to him, shunting it at Shepard’s chest. He lets Kaidan go with a grunt. The air sizzles as the energy dissipates.

“That’s a start,” he says with a curt nod. “Again.”

Kaidan exhales, shaking off echoes of kinetic energy. The next time Shepard blocks, Kaidan puts a biotic wall between them, but Shepard merely twists his torso, slips around him, and takes him out at the back of the knee. Kaidan swears, but uses the gravity well to break his fall.

“Good, you can protect yourself,” Shepard says. “Now use it against me.”

“Is that an order?” Kaidan asks through gritted teeth.

Shepard’s gaze is cold, calculating. “Up to you. But whatever happened in the past to make you so afraid of yourself won’t matter if you’re dead.”

Kaidan wonders if the ghosts of Torfan agree with him.

Even if Kaidan wanted to take dark energy on the offensive, it’s easier said than done. Shepard’s got a hand in the gravity well now; Kaidan _feels_ it, like pinpricks to his nerves. Even a biotic attack needs to be faster than Shepard, and Kaidan just… _isn’t._

Kaidan calls upon his corona, smoothing the blue tendrils of biotic energy into a second skin. When he strikes next he pushes a wave of dark energy into Shepard’s shoulder. Instead of knocking him off balance Shepard pivots effortlessly to the side, his own aura wreathing him like a fiery halo. One foot hooks Kaidan’s ankle. Now it’s Kaidan who’s off balance, at least until Shepard gets an arm around his neck from behind and pins him to his chest.

Their coronas hiss, the feedback flooding his nerves enough to rattle his teeth. Where Kaidan’s is compact and controlled, Shepard’s pulsates like a star, radiating a titanic amount of energy. A wave of static rolls past as they both let go of the gravity well and gutter out, leaving just the ragged sound of their breathing. When Shepard speaks it’s right next to Kaidan’s ear.

“You are not the person you should be afraid of.”

“You think it’s about fear,” Kaidan mutters, wrenching out of his grasp and going again. Again, his corona flares. Again, Shepard counters. Again, Kaidan hits the mat.

“You’re doing a hell of a job convincing me otherwise,” Shepard replies.

Shepard helps him up and circles again. There’s nothing opaque about his expression now, but only because there’s nothing to hide. There’s nothing on his mind but the target.

Kaidan’s the target.

“So the person you hurt. Someone you cared about?”

Kaidan throws another punch, aura blazing. This time, when Shepard evades and slips behind him Kaidan throws an elbow, but Shepard’s forearm is already up to block it.

“No,” Kaidan manages as Shepard pins his wrists behind his back.

“Someone you trusted?”

Kaidan doesn’t wait for the reset. He pivots and swings, fist wreathed in a gauntlet of blue energy, but he finds nothing but empty space. Kaidan barely gets his guard up before Shepard’s foot connects with the outside of his shoulder. Two jabs later Shepard spins, seizes Kaidan by the arm and flips him over his shoulder. His back hits the mat with a thud.

“He was my teacher,” Kaidan gasps, trying to get air back in his lungs. “And I didn’t hurt him. I killed him.”

This time, when Shepard helps him up there’s a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

It’s _enraging._

Kaidan attacks again, reckless this time, and it takes Shepard less than three seconds to plant him back on the ground, face-first. When Shepard offers to help him up Kaidan shrugs him off, corona snarling. Shepard steps back and waits for him to get to his feet on his own.

“You were young, I’m guessing.”

Kaidan wipes a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth. “Seventeen.”

“Betting you’ve learned a thing or two since then.”

“A thing or two, yeah.”

Ten years. Ten years of drilling, working, controlling _every_ move until he’d mastered it fully. Yeah, he’d learned a fucking thing or two, all with the snap of Vyrnnus’ neck ringing in his ears.

“Then _show_ me.”

He can’t. Not like this. In one sparring session Shepard has unraveled him to the point he’d just handed his commanding officer one of the most damning skeletons in his closet.

_So stop taking the bait and think!_

But it’s useless. There’s no move in the Alliance handbook Shepard doesn’t see coming a mile away, and even when Kaidan does use the gravity well, Shepard’s _still_ faster. Stronger. No one Kaidan trained with in BAaT could put out the kind of raw energy he does with that barrier.

What the hell would Shepard do on the field, free from the confines of a tiny shipboard gym?

_Torfan._ That’s what.

You don’t survive the Villa and get all the way to N4 without being _better_ than everyone in your path. Kaidan can’t outmaneuver him, and he’ll never overpower him.

So maybe it’s not about being better, or faster. Maybe it’s as simple as being different.

_Think!_

Nothing about Shepard’s connection with the gravity well is refined. He’d admitted as much over the pancakes on Arcturus.

_I don’t think you’ll see the word ‘finesse’ show up on any of my personnel records, unless it’s preceded by the phrase ‘lack of.’_

The corner of Kaidan’s mouth turns upward. The next time he strikes, he doesn’t try to hit. Instead he jabs and ducks a shoulder, opening up his left side for another kick. Shepard delivers right on cue.

Kaidan’s corona burns bright as he catches Shepard’s heel in a snare of kinetic energy and tugs it upwards. The commander flails, eyes widening as he pitches past his center of balance. Kaidan lets go before he hits the mat in an undignified heap.

This time _he_ offers a hand to help Shepard to his feet, burying a smirk.

But instead of being offended the commander grins. “Not bad.”

Kaidan puts his hands on his hips, sides heaving. His shirt’s soaked through, while Shepard’s is still dry enough that he uses the hem to wipe the sweat off his face.

“Pay up,” Kaidan says.

Shepard finishes wiping his brow and bobs his head. “Deal’s a deal. What do you want to know?”

Now it’s Kaidan’s turn to conduct a test. He’d just admitted to murder. What would Shepard be willing to give up on his own?

“First one’s dealer’s choice.”

The grin gets wider. “You think you’re getting more than one.”

“We’re about to find out.”

Shepard holds him in that piercing gaze that’s like looking at a two-way mirror. “All right. It was a krogan.”

Kaidan blinks. “What?”

“On Arcturus you asked me where I trained for my biotics. I said it was complicated, and it was. But the simple version is, the Alliance hired a krogan shaman off the books to work with a handful of kids with high biotic potential. My implant and my training were all part of a classified project that got discontinued as soon as Ascension gained traction.” He hesitates. “I was fourteen.”

Kaidan digests this for a moment. A _krogan?_ The Alliance had sent a kid to learn from a _krogan?_ “Why would they do that?”

Shepard settles back into a ready stance. “Don’t forget our deal.”

_Damnit._

They circle each other again. This time when Kaidan reaches for the gravity well Shepard’s corona blazes, a raging wall of snarling blue fire blocking Kaidan’s attempt to snare him. A few seconds later Kaidan’s back on the floor.

An electric shock passes between them as Shepard crouches beside him and offers a hand. Before pulling Kaidan to his feet he leans in until they’re almost nose to nose.

“Think I’m going to fall for that twice?”

Kaidan’s heart races, the remnants of Shepard’s dark energy still crawling across his skin.

“Guess not,” he manages.

When they face off again, there’s a predatory gleam in Shepard’s eye, like he’s finally found something worthy of his time. It’s terrifying…and a little exhilarating.

The air crackles with electricity. Tendrils of blue energy snap and snarl as they spar, coronas seething against each other.

Kaidan can’t keep up. He pants for breath, while Shepard’s merely let out a single notch on the reins.

“Ready to call it?” Shepard asks when Kaidan begs for a break to get some water.

“No.”

There _has_ to be another way to get past him. Something he won’t see coming. Just like the trick with the snare, he doesn’t need much of a window. Just… _something_.

Kaidan wipes water from the corner of his mouth and returns to the mat, Shepard poised and ready. That barrier of his is one of the most potent displays of biotic energy Kaidan has ever felt, but its intensity is also its Achilles’ heel. It’s not something he can hold forever. Kaidan just needs to keep his feet long enough that he drops it.

Just like before, Kaidan makes his move, not aiming to win, but simply hoping not to lose. He keeps one hand in the gravity well, goading Shepard into calling on his barrier. Kinetic energy roils and churns, searing across Kaidan’s nerves. Kaidan feints, Shepard blocks, and Kaidan puts everything he has into avoiding the counterattack. With a wave he lets go of the gravity well.

Shepard drops his barrier.

Kaidan throws one last jab, keeping his eye on Shepard’s right hand. The moment it comes up to deflect, Kaidan flicks his fingers.

The gravity well does a somersault as he wraps a coil of dark energy around Shepard’s fist. A twist of his wrist and he increases the mass of Shepard’s hand until it drops to the floor like an anchor. Shepard sucks in a surprised breath as Kaidan puts a hand to the back of his neck and uses a foot to hook him by the ankle. The moment his stomach hits the mat Kaidan lets go of the gravity well and turns him loose. Shepard sits up and rubs his fist.

“Are you telling me you can fine tune your fields to just alter the mass of my _fist?_ ”

Kaidan extends his arm. The gravity well ripples, and the water bottle that had been standing on the bench snaps to his hand.

“Yeah.”

Shepard’s face cracks into a grin. “Fuck me.”

Kaidan offers a hand to pull him to his feet, and gives him the water bottle.

Shepard drains half of it before grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat off his neck. “Okay. So what’s your question?”

“Why would the Alliance send a fourteen-year-old kid to work with a krogan?”

It would have been easy to deflect the question, turn the answer on the Alliance and say nothing about himself. Kaidan half expects him to. Instead, his lip twists bitterly.

“Because my mother is Captain Hannah Shepard, and she always gets her way.” His expression hardens. “It’s not something I care to elaborate on.”

Ok. Boundary drawn. But even admitting it exists feels like…something. Something he’s been entrusted with.

“Understood,” Kaidan says.

Shepard’s hand shakes as he checks the chronometer on his omnitool. It’s almost reassuring to see that the biotics take a toll on him somewhere.

“Fuck. Tomorrow’s gonna hurt.”

Fuck is right. It’s almost 03:00.

“I’m stopping by the mess to raid your stash so I don’t pass out,” Shepard says, slinging the towel around his neck. “You coming?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan says, surprised that he actually…wants to. “I’ll be there in a minute. I need to stretch or I won’t be able to get out of my rack in…two hours. Fuck.”

“That’s the next test,” Shepard says with a grin. “Seeing how well you bounce after an ass kicking.”

“Pretty sure I failed the one you just gave me.”

The smile fades, replaced by something thoughtful. “No.”

“I hit you _twice._ You dropped my ass at least two dozen times.”

Shepard shrugs a shoulder. “First person in a long time to do it who didn’t have an N in their file.”

Kaidan blinks. “Oh.”

The grin comes back. It’s a nice grin. Kaidan could mistake it for friendly if he wasn’t careful.

“Don’t let it go to your head. Next time I’ll put some effort behind it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Kaidan takes a seat on the mat as Shepard heads for the exit. Before he gets there, he stops and looks back over his shoulder. “Alenko?”

Kaidan looks up.

“You’re good at this. Better than you think. But if you want to be great…you have to learn to let go.”

“What, and you’re going to teach me?”

“Yes.”

The insane thing is that Kaidan believes him.

~

Sleep doesn’t happen. He and Shepard sit in the mess for almost an hour picking at the remnants of fried rice from dinner.

Shepard _talks._ Hesitantly, at first, like it’s a skill that’s gotten rusty. They swap drill sergeant stories, exchange some of the wild rumors they’ve heard about biotics. He even says a little about growing up on Arcturus, careful to leave out any mention of his parents.

Kaidan never would have pegged Shepard as the kind of guy who liked to stargaze, but there’s a faraway look in his eyes when he talks about his favorite spot to watch ships come and go.

By the time they part ways it’s 04:15, and Kaidan opts for a hot shower and then goes back to the gym in an attempt to stay limber and stave off the inevitable soreness headed his way. When the rest of the marines tumble in, he’s warmed up and ready for another go.

“You look like shit,” Pendergrass says when she sets her bag down.

“Good morning to you, too.”

Wong and Aslany enter together, Wong chattering Aslany’s ear off. She doesn’t appear ready to deck him, so that hatchet seems buried for now. Beaudoin strolls in one minute before 05:00, humming to himself. He greets everyone in turn, taking an extra minute to elicit a smile or a laugh. He succeeds with everyone but Aslany.

Goat, indeed.

When Shepard strides in everyone jumps to attention. Kaidan may look like shit, but the commander looks refreshed and fully rested. He skims his team before barking out instructions, hardly giving Kaidan a second glance. No trace of the smile, no mention of their two-hour sparring session. It’s just time to get to work.

A lot of pieces to put together when it comes to Shepard. Then again, most of this squad has a lot of pieces that don’t know how to fit together.

Kaidan shakes his head. A mad scientist, a marksman with the galaxy’s shortest fuse, an overeager frat boy, the Butcher of Torfan, a space wizard, and a goat.

They’re a hell of a band of misfits, all right.

But he’s starting to get a good feeling about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been dying to introduce the _Myeongnyang_ marines, and here they are! I hope you give them a shot and enjoy the hijinks. There are many hijinks coming.


	3. Welcome to the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard has a plan. Kaidan _hates_ the plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Combat and occasional graphic violence and injury ahead.

_So welcome to the fire_   
_I'm the one with the lighter_   
_Feel it running through your veins_   
_As we're walking through the flames_

[x](https://open.spotify.com/track/1wybXxUeY5yj4Zi7d6jAaW?si=u2bO1ho4SYWLqA3DVW9saQ)

**Welcome to the Fire**

If the batarians don’t kill Shepard, Kaidan _will_.

The mission should have been routine. Check in with the local Alliance outfit on Mindoir before doing some recon outside the settlement. With Torfan in the rearview and Mindoir finally on its feet, the Alliance wanted to do a little flag waving, in case the batarians had retribution in mind.

Two days and a few shittastic decisions later, Kaidan crouches behind an abandoned mining excavator deep in a bunker, pistol in hand, while Shepard kneels in the center of the room surrounded by a dozen pirates, each with a gun pointed right at his head.

His _helmetless_ head.

Of _course_ they took his helmet. It was the _second_ thing Kaidan had argued they’d do when Shepard hatched this batshit plan. The first was take his gun. Kaidan was right on both counts.

Shepard’s outnumbered, off the grid, and has no firepower save the eezo nodes under his skin, assuming this bunch wasn’t smart enough to notice or remove his amp.

They’re _fucked._

The only break they’ve caught is that Shepard’s captors apparently have enough confidence in the guards stationed at the entrance that they weren’t watching the tunnel when Kaidan and the marine squad eased quietly into the chamber.

Wong edges along the perimeter and sets up camp on the other side of the poorly-lit cavern, assault rifle gripped in both hands.

“Wong,” Kaidan murmurs into the comm. “Switch to your pistol. You start spraying bullets while his head’s exposed and he’s just as likely to go down to friendly fire.”

Wong’s shaky breath carries over the comm line, but he racks the rifle and draws his sidearm.

Beaudoin settles in on the opposite flank, quick and silent, drawing the sniper rifle off his back. At this range, it shouldn’t matter he doesn’t have Aslany’s skill as a marksman.

 _“_ Aslany,” Kaidan says. “Still clear out there?”

“ _Yes, sir,”_ comes the clipped reply. “ _Anything moves and I’m dustin’ it. No one’s comin’ in after you if I have anything to say about it.”_

“Copy that.”

Kaidan signals to Pendergrass, who settles into place behind a supply crate a meter away, still wearing smears of blood from the guards. She digs in her satchel of ECM grenades and palms one. Her respiration and heart rate read high, but Kaidan chalks it up to adrenaline.

This isn’t exactly how he’d hoped Pendergrass’s first ground mission would go, but after the mess with the guards he’s pretty sure she’ll do just fine. Wong’s the one he worries about. _His_ heart rate is closing in on 125 sitting still.

They’ve got one prayer to alert Shepard his team is in place, and it all depends on how close Kaidan can get without attracting attention.

Shepard may not be able to hear him, but if Kaidan can get close enough, he’ll _feel_ him through the gravity well.

If Kaidan’s seen, Shepard’s dead. If he’s not, and they somehow make it out of here, he’ll _still_ be dead. It just won’t be from Wong’s friendly fire.

Kaidan is going to _kill_ him.

“Wait for my signal,” Kaidan says softly. He scans the room one more time.

The chamber is more or less a twenty-meter space scooped right out of the rock. Abandoned mining equipment litters the ground, rusting in place. Sealed supply crates are stacked haphazardly wherever they fit, or wherever the person who carried them in thought to drop them. It’s a lot of crates.

 _They’re stockpiling_.

Shepard had been right about one thing, at least. The batarians are looking for a foothold.

At the center of it all, Shepard kneels surrounded by his merry band of captors. Eight batarians, two vorcha, a turian, and a krogan. From the looks of it, most of their guns are barely on the level of Elkoss Combine’s discount shit, but there’s an occasional Raider shotgun, and one batarian grips a harpoon gun. Not that it matters _what_ they have. Outnumbered in an enclosed space, quantity will crush quality pretty fucking quick.

 _Damnit,_ _Shepard_.

If Kaidan eases to the left, he can use one of the crates as cover to move in and take up position behind a mining drill. If Shepard can’t feel him from there, they’ll just have to cross their fingers and hope for the best.

Kaidan inhales, checks the room one more time to ensure no one suddenly got interested in a decommissioned mining drill, and moves silently into position at Shepard’s three. From here, at least, he can get a good look at him. A fresh bruise spreads across the commander’s left eye, but he looks otherwise none the worse for wear. For now.

No sign of Shepard’s weapons, but his helmet sits on top of a crate about three meters away, about halfway between himself and the commander and out of reach for them both. Some fucking plan.

The _plan,_ if Kaidan is being generous, had involved Shepard talking his way out of being shot long enough for the team to move in. That part, improbably, appears to be working. From further back he couldn’t make out anything Shepard was saying, caring only that he was still alive enough to say it. But from here, the echo is mitigated enough Kaidan can make out a few words.

His eyes widen _._ Shepard’s giving them info on Mindoir’s security protocols. Alliance deployments. Unit sizes and patrol patterns. And it’s _real_ information. He’s telling the truth. No wonder they’re listening so intently.

Shepard’s feeding the enemy actual intel.

There aren’t enough expletives in fucking _universe_. If they fail to eliminate this cell, Mindoir’s fucked, and Shepard’s going to be the one who fucked them. Of all the reckless, _irresponsible…_ if Kaidan makes it back to the _Myeongnyang_ alive, Captain Oseguera is going to get exactly what she asked him for.

The truth about the Butcher of Torfan.

Kaidan grits his teeth, clutching his pistol tighter. He still can’t feel Shepard’s biotic field. Holding his breath, he edges closer until the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

Shepard’s eyes flick in Kaidan’s direction.

“Ready,” Kaidan murmurs into the comm.

The corner of the commander’s mouth tugs upward into an almost feral smirk.

The gravity well roars, Shepard’s corona burning to life like a collapsing star. Too late, Kaidan understands the true danger in the room.

And it’s not the pirates.

~

_(Two Days Earlier)_

Kaidan makes his way through the _Myeongnyang’s_ CIC, tipping a salute to the ship’s navigator before reaching the door to Captain Oseguera’s office. His encounters with the captain have been brief until now; she’s been content to stay hands-off and let Shepard work with the marine detail.

Night of their first drop, she’s not hands-off anymore.

She sits behind her desk when the door opens, in mid-conversation with the XO of the _Madrid_ , the lead cruiser of the ‘ _Yang’s_ wolfpack. When Kaidan hesitates she gestures for him to come inside without looking up.

“ _Colony sensors caught the drive plume on a deceleration burn, but couldn’t identify the ship and it didn’t respond to hails. Before they could get a bird in the system to check it out, it left. Nothing since then until a few days ago, but they had enough time to get a shuttle planetside._ ”

“Thank you, Major. I’ll relay that to the ground team. You’ve got the Grizzly prepped for drop?”

_“It’ll be there before you are, ready and waiting.”_

“Good, then we’ll hit the ground running. I’m on standby if anything changes.”

_“Understood, Captain.”_

“Oseguera out.”

She severs the connection and looks up at Kaidan with a broad smile. “Lieutenant! Come in. Sit. Would you like some tea?” She takes a sip from a cup, then wrinkles her nose in irritation. “Damnit.”

“Sir?” Kaidan asks as he takes a seat across from her.

Oseguera holds up the cup with a mournful sigh. “My curse is never actually drinking my tea before it gets cold.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaidan says with a small smile.

Oseguera rests her elbows on her desk and sizes him up thoughtfully. Most CO’s Kaidan has known tend to have a default state of hardass, but not Oseguera. Her brown eyes carry a natural warmth, and the laugh lines at the corner of her eyes give away a sense of kindness you usually don’t see in the military.

“So,” she says with a keen glint in her eye. “Lieutenant Commander Shepard has debriefed the marine detail on tomorrow’s drop.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kaidan says with a nod. “Mindoir. Concern of potential pirate activity in the mountains outside the main settlement. We’re to investigate the area and clean out any footholds should we find any.”

“Correct. And how do you feel about your squad?”

Kaidan shifts in his seat. “That sounds like a question for the Commander, sir.”

“I’m asking you.”

He recalls the conversation he had with Beaudoin last week. _I’m betting the Alliance is less concerned about your baggage than they are the big guy’s. Don’t be surprised when the Captain calls you in for a special debrief._

Looks like Beaudoin’s right.

“I…think we’re ready,” Kaidan says. “Everyone’s worked hard. Shepard expects a lot and runs things tight. So far everyone has risen to the challenge.”

She nods. “Any concerns I should be aware of?”

Kaidan takes a deep breath. “If I may be so bold, sir, are you asking me about the squad, or about Shepard?”

A slow smile spreads across her face. “They told me you weren’t dumb. Yes, Lieutenant, I am asking if you have any concerns about the XO’s fitness to command this mission.”

 _They_ , Kaidan wonders. _Who’s ‘they?’_

“I’m not exactly comfortable being an informant.”

“Well, by all means, the military certainly prioritizes your _comfort_ over all else,” she replies with a bemused look.

“Sir—”

“Alenko,” she says gently. “I’m not asking you to be an informant. You’re my people now, and that means it’s my job to make sure you succeed. Same goes for Shepard. No one on this ship, anyway, is out to get him. But seeing as you aren’t dumb, you know very well _why_ I’m asking.”

 _Torfan_. Shepard’s first ground mission since the bloodbath on that godforsaken rock is bound to have half the Alliance on edge.

Maybe for good reason. It’s not like Shepard’s tenure on the _Myeongnyang_ had started on the right foot. Though, after the sparring encounter last week, maybe it’s not PTSD they’re concerned about.

Shepard’s a _killer._ He’d sacrificed over 300 lives to secure victory on Torfan. What does a six-man ground team mean to him?

Maybe not much. But Kaidan can’t shake the mental image of the person who’d helped him up off the mat over a dozen times the other night. _You’re good at this,_ he’d said. _Better than you think._ Like it was important to him that Kaidan believe it. Like he _cared._

“I’ve overlooked the incident on the day you both reported for duty against my better judgement,” Oseguera goes on. “The LC certainly has a few angels on his shoulder with more bars on their uniform than I do, and they're doing their best to shout down his demons. But he’s my responsibility right now, and so are you. I’m not asking you to divulge what happened, unless you think letting him lead this team puts lives at unnecessary risk.”

“I…don’t, sir.”

He’s not sure _why_ he believes it, but he does.

She nods crisply. “I don’t think you’re the type of person who prioritizes careers over lives. If things go sideways down there because he’s not fit for active duty, that’s on me, but I’m relying on _your_ judgement. When this mission is over, whether it goes precisely by the book or FUBAR, I will be looking for a very thorough debrief from everyone. All I ask for is the truth.”

“I understand, sir.”

Her broad smile returns. “I think you and I are going to get along, fine, Alenko. Good luck down there.” She grabs her teacup and stands along with him. “Time to reheat my tea. Maybe I’ll actually drink it this time.”

~

Kaidan meets the team in the cargo hold, the on-board corvette prepped and ready for drop. Aslany, Wong, Beaudoin, and Pendergrass are already assembled and stowing their gear.

Kaidan wonders if Oseguera had met with any of them about Shepard.

Aslany grins at him as she checks the sync between the targeting software of her Hammer sniper rifle to her hardsuit. Pendergrass whistles as she tosses a bag filled with ECM grenades into the compartment under her seat.

“You wanna maybe… _not_ lob the live grenades around while we’re still on the ship?” Beaudoin asks. She shrugs in reply, unconcerned.

“Think we’ll get to use ‘em?” Wong asks.

“Might want to do your homework before you get too excited,” Kaidan advises, allowing a hint of authority to creep into his voice. “Batarians sacked Mindoir almost ten years ago. Let’s not _hope_ they’re back.”

Wong and Aslany exchange glances.

“They’ve finally made good progress rebuilding,” Kaidan continues, “but with Torfan in the rearview mirror, it’s a prime target for retaliation.”

Wong leans in conspiratorially. “Think that’s why we got the call?”

Kaidan suppresses a sigh. “Don’t know what you mean by that.”

“Come on, sir,” Wong says with a touch of exasperation. “Because of _him_. One thing to wave the flag, another to put it in the hands of the guy who kicked their ass.”

“I follow orders and don’t speculate,” Kaidan replies, visually inspecting his medkit before storing it in the corvette. “You should think about doing the same.”

“You’re no fun, LT,” Wong quips.

The gravity well hums as Shepard strides into the cargo bay fully armored, pistol on his hip, shotgun racked on his lower back. It’s the first time Kaidan’s seen him fully kitted out in person, not in a vid. Shepard’s an intimidating sight just in his BDUs.

_Glad he’s on our side._

Shepard nods brusquely to his team and does a quick inventory check before ordering them in and giving the pilot an all-clear. Within minutes they fall away from the belly of the _Myeongnyang_ and spiral towards the marbled planet below.

“You’ve all read the full mission debrief?” Shepard asks, in a tone that isn’t going to accept anything other than an affirmative.

“We’re ready, sir,” Beaudoin confirms.

Shepard levels them each with that stare. “I presume you’ve all also familiarized yourself with what to expect if we engage with batarian pirates?”

Now there’s hesitancy. Aslany finally speaks up. “They’re pretty brutal, sir. Are those sawblade gauntlets of theirs real?”

“Yes,” Shepard replies, after a haunting pause. “And flechettes painted with anticoagulants. They fight brutal, and the only thing worse than being taken down on the field is being taken captive. Therefore, if we engage, you listen to my orders. I don’t want any fucking heroes on this mission.”

“Aye, sir,” Kaidan says, before any of the marines say something they might later wish they hadn’t.

Shepard’s gaze darts swiftly to Kaidan, then back to Wong. Apparently Kaidan is not the only one who’s identified him as someone to keep an eye on.

Does Shepard suspect Oseguera is watching him just as carefully as he’s watching Wong? Everything Kaidan’s learned about Shepard so far suggests he does.

“If we’re lucky,” Shepard says, “we won’t find anything.”

But there’s something heavy in his voice. He knows just as well as Kaidan does they’ll find something. Wong is right. The Alliance wouldn’t send Shepard if they expected nothing.

~

Lieutenant Monroe, head of the 139th on Mindoir, meets them at the landing pad and escorts them towards the colony. It’s hazy, early morning local time. From the fields come the whine of aerator drones and the churn of heavy machinery. The vegetation has a yellowish tinge that looks…unnatural. Kaidan’s only been to a couple of colonies, and so far each one is just different enough from Earth to be unsettling.

As they trudge past prefabs on the outskirts of town towards the Alliance bunker, they get more than a few sidelong glances from locals who put their heads down and hurry past. Kaidan can only imagine the kind of courage required to rebuild a colony as horribly brutalized as Mindoir had been. The reminder that it could happen again can’t be a comfortable one.

Monroe escorts them into the bunker, stepping to the side as a platoon of soldiers jog past on a drill.

“Good to have you here, Commander,” she says. They enter a sizeable garage with weapons lockers, storage crates, and an M-29 Grizzly suspended over a trench, ready for deployment. Shepard’s eyes go straight to the vehicle, with a look not unlike Wong’s at the prospect of combat.

Shepard nods. “I’ve been briefed on the unauthorized orbit a few weeks ago. Anything since then?”

“We picked up a comm ping from an unknown beacon about forty clicks due west,” Monroe replies. “There’s a mountain range out that way that would be a good spot to dig in.” Her straight shoulders sink ever so slightly. “I’ve got just enough bodies to protect the perimeter. I can’t afford to send squads out for recon.”

Shepard crosses his arms and tilts his head. “Well, then. Let’s find them and dig them out.”

~

One thing is abundantly clear as the Grizzly slews violently to the left. Shepard should never be allowed behind the wheel of a tank. Kaidan grips the handle by his ear from the passenger seat as Shepard rights their course, a smirk just visible through the faceplate of his helmet.

The rest of the team sits in the crew compartment in the back. Over the comms, Beaudoin’s shouts of dismay intermix with Aslany’s joyous whoop.

“Something about that rock offend you, sir?” Kaidan asks through gritted teeth.

“Do you know what I would give to have one of these in the hold of the _Myeongnyang_?” Shepard says by way of reply. There’s something serene in his voice that’s as terrifying as it is fascinating. Kaidan’s gotten used to the hard, distant XO who runs them through drills every morning. But here in the front cab of the Grizzly, he’s all but slouched in the driver’s seat, not an ounce of tension to be found in him. It’s like meeting an entirely new person.

Kaidan directs his focus on the sensor readings, searching for any activity that might point them in the right direction and end the wild ride as quickly as possible. Thankfully, he finds something right as Shepard starts eyeing a particularly steep foothill he can’t possibly be considering trying to scale.

“I’m getting a ping from that comm beacon Monroe told us about.”

The playful glint vanishes from Shepard’s eyes, replaced by the same rigid veneer that he’d activated upon discovering Kaidan’s presence in the bar on Arcturus. Just like flipping a switch.

“Let me guess. Planted right in the open, so anyone who investigates is clear, visible and easy to pick off?”

“Appears that way,” Kaidan says, dread stirring in the pit of his stomach.

“They’re here, all right.” The tank swerves again as Shepard guns the engines and points them towards the mountains. “Sweep the surrounding area. Look for lifeforms, metallic structures. I don’t care how small it is. You see anything, I want to know about it.”

“Aye, sir.”

A grim silence falls over the compartment as Kaidan glues his attention to the sensors. Shepard brakes the Grizzly behind a rocky outcrop and checks the connection between the targeting software of his shotgun and his suit uplink.

“Something up, Commander?” Pendergrass pipes up from the passenger compartment.

“Sit tight and be ready,” Shepard replies. “Prep the turret.”

Muffled, excited muttering crowds the comm before Shepard shuts it off.

“There’s a bunch of abandoned mining shafts in this area,” Kaidan says finally. “The geographic report they sent us said the colony hasn’t gotten them up and running again. It’ll take weeks to sweep them all.”

Shepard stares at the scans, brow furrowed. “We don’t have that kind of time. We need to strike now, while we have some sense of surprise, before they have the opportunity to increase their numbers. Right now all they have it’s a toehold. We’re wiping it out before it becomes an infestation. Clear?”

Kaidan nods. “I hear you, Commander.”

“Good. Because I have a feeling you are not going to like what I have in mind.”

~

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Kaidan says the moment Shepard stops speaking.

“Told you you wouldn’t like it,” Shepard replies.

The marine squad, assembled outside the Grizzly, glances between Kaidan and Shepard like they’re a lit fuse, and are trying to gauge the blast radius so they can stand just outside of it. Kaidan doesn’t give a flying fuck that he’s dangerously close to insubordination with the Butcher of Torfan.

This is goddamned _insane._

“This isn’t a plan,” Kaidan argues. “It’s a death wish.”

“If you have a better idea, I’m listening,” Shepard says, unperturbed.

“I can think of a dozen plans that don’t involve _handing_ yourself over to the enemy,” Kaidan retorts.

“Any that don’t need time and backup just to narrow down where they’re hiding?”

“Getting the job done fast isn’t always better than doing it right.”

“It is when you’re up against batarian pirates.” Shepard checks the heatsink on his shotgun. “If we’re lucky, right now all we’re dealing with is a few recon squads. They’ll be funneling in supplies, gathering intel on the settlement, and learning the terrain. They’re looking for information, not a fight. There aren’t enough of them to risk being discovered. They’ll take me alive if they have the chance, and I’m going to give them the chance.”

Kaidan crosses his arms over his chest. “And you think they’re dumb enough _not_ to disable your transponder the moment they have you.”

“Their scouts tend to be smarter than the average cell, so yeah, they’ll disable my transponder.” He gives Pendergrass a pointed look. “But I’m betting you have a solution for that.”

She glances guiltily at Kaidan before nodding. “Yes, sir, I can jury rig a backup that’s disconnected from your suit power plant so they won’t detect it. Bad news is, it won’t have a ton of juice. So, uh, we’d need to stay close and hope they lead us to their…lair _._ Or whatever. Before it goes dark.”

“Great,” Kaidan mutters. “More things to go wrong. Here’s another. Who’s to say there won’t be a biotic in the room who’ll pop your amp out the moment they detect your field?”

Shepard waves his hand. “All said and done, there won’t be more than a dozen or so. I’ll take those odds. Batarians aren’t known for biotic potential.”

“Humans aren’t known for their biotic potential, either,” Kaidan points out. “And yet there’s two of us.”

He cracks a grin. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve failed that dice roll.”

“You’ve done this _before?”_

“Not this _exactly._ But remind me sometime to tell you about the helium-3 refinery incident.”

“Unbelievable,” Kaidan mutters. “Even if you manage to keep your amp, they can’t _possibly_ think you’re out there alone. There’s no way they’ll believe you don’t have backup waiting somewhere.”

“They will when they find the falsified patrol orders on my omnitool,” Shepard replies with another glance at Pendergrass.

“Yeah,” she admits. “I can do that, too.”

“Alenko,” Shepard says, with an oddly patient tone that only incenses Kaidan more. “You heard Monroe. They don’t have enough bodies to send out recon patrols, and I’m betting the batarians have figured out at least that much by now. They’ll buy it, and lead us right to their base of operations. We can take them out in one blow. It’ll work.”

“We’re putting your life at risk on a whim,” Kaidan argues.

The corner of Shepard’s mouth quirks, as though he’s trying not to smile. “While I appreciate the concern, it’s a risk I’m willing to take. If it goes bad, the squad’s yours. And they’ll be in good hands.”

Kaidan scowls, then straightens and clasps his hands behind his back in full military posture. “Is this an order, sir?”

Shepard appraises him with that inscrutable gaze. “Yes.”

“I’d like to officially state an objection.”

“Noted. My orders stand.” Shepard opens his omnitool and taps the haptic keys. “Drop me off at these coordinates. That should get me close enough to get within range of their comm buoy on foot while keeping the Grizzly off their radar. Once they take me captive, up to you how you want to follow the trail. I’ll keep them talking as long as I can to give you time to get in.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaidan says under his breath.

“This is what we’re here to do,” Shepard insists. “And we’re going to get it done, no matter what the cost.”

 _No matter what the cost_. And that’s coming from someone who knew exactly how high the cost could be.

At least there’s one good thing coming out of this bullshit plan. Kaidan gets to drive.

~

Kaidan keeps his eyes glued to Shepard’s transponder signal as it makes its way through the canyon below towards the source of the unknown comm beacon. They parked the Grizzly up in the hills a few hundred meters away, relying on the alloys found within the surrounding rocks to make the tank even more difficult to detect should anyone be looking for it.

Aslany lays stretched out on her belly, eye pressed against the scope of her sniper rifle, watching Shepard’s progress.

“LC’s got balls, I’ll give him that,” Beaudoin comments, helmet in hand while he takes a swig from a canteen. “But I guess anyone willing to wade into tunnels packed to the rafters with batarians has gotta have a krogan quad.”

“It’s gonna get him killed,” Kaidan mutters.

“Maybe it won’t?” Pendergrass ventures. “I did a good job with that transponder. If they find it I’ll clean the head for a month.”

“If they find it, he’s dead,” Kaidan snaps.

Pendergrass shuffles her feet and scowls at the ground. “That’s why I did a _good job.”_

Wong rubs his hands together. “Either way it’s gonna end in an epic ass kicking.”

“Take it easy there, Blasto,” Beaudoin says. “If it does, better hope it’s us doing the ass kicking.”

“Will you all shut up?” Aslany hisses. “I’m trying to work, here.”

Kaidan holds up a hand for silence, already annoyed about venting his own frustration on the squad.

Pendergrass squints at something in her HUD. “I see some non-Alliance signatures closing in on the LC’s location.”

“If you can see them, shouldn’t we be afraid they can see us?” Wong asks.

“Bettin’ they haven’t modded the fuck out of their radar the way I have,” she says with a shrug. “Also, I’ve set up a dampening field around our perimeter. They can’t see shit.”

“I see one,” Aslany murmurs. “Four-eyed bastard comin’ in on Shepard’s three.”

The distant echo of gunfire echoes throughout the canyon below, and Kaidan’s heart starts to pound. Shepard has set himself up for _slaughter._ He stares at the commander’s transponder tag, willing it to remain solid and green. They’re too far away to get his biometric feed, but so long as that tag stays on his radar…

“Fuck, the LC’s a terrible shot,” Aslany comments.

“The point _is_ to get captured alive,” Beaudoin points out. “If he kills everyone, they can’t exactly take him captive. And if they _think_ he can kill ‘em all, he’s too high risk to take prisoner.”

“Well, then he’s playing just the right amount of dumb, because they’ve got him,” Aslany confirms. “And so far they haven’t nailed him between the eyes.”

“What are they doing?” Kaidan demands.

“They took his shotgun. And his sidearm. Yep, and the helmet.”

The green transponder tag shimmies on Kaidan’s scanner, then turns white. Kaidan swears softly under his breath.

“My transponder’s working,” Pendergrass announces. “We can track him still.”

“Good,” Aslany says, “because they’re marching him northeast, so we should probably get our asses in gear.”

Beaudoin puts a hand on Kaidan’s arm before he can climb back into the Grizzly. “Not for nothing, but I’m keeping a close eye on Junior over there.” He nods towards Wong. “I’ve seen his make and model before. He’ll either blow the whole op by getting too cocky or he’ll freeze up when the first bullets fly. Either way puts everyone in danger.”

Kaidan nods. “You’re a good goat, Chief.”

Beaudoin grins. “I try, sir.”

~

They follow Shepard’s trail for nearly three hours. Of the abandoned mine tunnels the colony still has records of, Pendergrass flags the three most likely targets based on the pirates’ heading. At the very least, they have some options if Shepard goes dark.

Unless the batarians found an _uncharted_ mining tunnel.

He can only imagine his debrief with Oseguera. _You lost the Butcher of Torfan? Well, in our defense, he made it pretty easy._

Pendergrass runs scans and monitors the transponder from the passenger seat.

“Think we’re gonna pull this off?” she asks.

“I hope so,” Kaidan replies. _For everyone’s sake_.

She chews on her lip. “You don’t really think he has a death wish, do you?”

Kaidan glances over at her in surprise. She shifts in her seat.

“It’s just…his friendly body count is awful high.”

“He’s spec ops,” Kaidan replies, tone sharper than he’d intended. “They’re trained to take risks. And…he’s not wrong. If we don’t hit them now, we create bigger problems that might be a lot harder to solve later.”

“So you think he’s doing the right thing?”

Kaidan sighs. “Hard to say until we see how it plays out, I guess. I don’t like it, but it’s the best thing we’ve got, and he gave an order.”

“Yeah,” she says, a hint of despondency creeping into her voice. “He gave orders on Torfan, too.”

“Hey.”

He waits until she looks him in the eye.

“I’m not letting you die, or him, or anyone else.”

A wan smile crosses her face. “I’m not dumb. I know what I signed up for. Any one of us could die in there for any stupid reason. But…it’s actually kinda nice you sound like you mean it.”

Kaidan lowers his chin and focuses on the terrain. Had Shepard wrestled with driving his men into those tunnels on Torfan? Or had he made the decision as easily as he had here?

 _Do_ their lives mean anything to him?

One way or another, they’re about to find out.

~

The trail ends at one of the three mines Pendergrass ID’d. It lies tucked in the foot of a mountain, with a giant hatch embedded into the base of the slope. Kaidan parks the Grizzly below a ridge, out of sight. One by one, the rest of the marines pop out of the hatch.

“Two guards,” Pendergrass murmurs, scanning her HUD. “Can’t get a read on the tunnel proper, but Shepard’s last transponder ping was right at the entrance.”

Aslany peers up the trunk of a thick tree towering above the ridge. “If I can get up there, bet I can tag the guards.”

“Think you can get both before one of them radios for help?” Kaidan asks.

A grin spreads over her face. “Kid stuff.”

Kaidan nods. “Do it. Pendergrass, can you get a read on the door from here? I’m betting they’re not relying on a ten-year old rusted lock to keep people out.”

She sticks her tongue out as she scowls at her omnitool. “Not from here. We’ll have to get closer.”

“Not until the guards are down.”

Kaidan gives Aslany a boost up to the lowest branch of the tree. “Climb quietly, Private.”

“I figured shaking branches and yelling to give away our location was infiltration 101,” she replies before swinging herself up to the next branch.

“As soon as the guards are down, we move in, weapons hot,” Kaidan informs the rest of them. “Get ready.”

Kaidan switches his HUD to a combat profile. Each marine transponder appears as a blue dot in the lower right field of his vision, with biofeeds scrolling to the lower left. Pulse, respiration, blood pressure, body temperature. Only Shepard’s shows no data.

They’re going to find him. He’s going to be alive, they’re going to get out of here, and then Kaidan can kill him on the ride back to the _‘Yang._

When he’s satisfied the biofeeds are all online and in the green, he double checks his med kit and the pouch of ECM grenades on his other hip. Last, he reaches out with one hand and curls his fingers, testing the gravity well. It responds quickly and eagerly.

Wong watches the soft shimmer of dark energy haloing his fingertips. “This is gonna be so fucking cool.”

“Focus,” Kaidan replies. “This isn’t a game. Lives are at stake. Remember your training and do not let your guard down.”

Aslany’s voice crackles over the comm. “ _In position. I’ve got a good sightline.”_

“Take ‘em out, Private.”

Aslany’s rifle cracks once. Twice.

_“Bagged and tagged.”_

“Move out,” Kaidan orders. “Aslany, you stay parked and out of sight. No one else goes in or out of that mine unless it’s us, got it?”

“ _Copy that. Fuck ‘em up.”_

They crest the ridge and reach the mine entrance fast and silent. Aslany had indeed dropped both guards quick and clean. The first body rolled down the hill with a hole dead center between all four eyes. The second lies crumpled at the door, bullet in one ear and out the other.

“Nice work, Aslany,” Kaidan murmurs into the comm.

“ _Maybe next time they’ll put their helmets on,”_ she says, smirk in her voice.

Kaidan signals to Pendergrass, who already has her omnitool out. “Get this door open.”

“Lookee that, they sure did upgrade the lock,” she reports. “Hang on.” After running a few scans she scowls down at the dead guard, then flash fabricates a silicon-carbide blade onto her omnitool and slices off the guard’s arm.

“What the _fuck?”_ Wong cries out.

Pendergrass hefts the dismembered arm, blood dribbling where the omni-blade hadn’t fully cauterized the impromptu amputation, and slaps its palm against the biometric panel. A red light blinks.

“Dammit,” she mutters, and tosses the arm. Beaudoin hops out of the way of an arc of congealing blood as it lands next to his feet. Pendergrass jogs down the hill, slices off the arm of the second guard with a squelch, and runs back up with it tucked under her shoulder.

“This should do it,” she replies, smacking the dead palm against the reader. The lock turns green, and the door hisses open. Pendergrass drops the severed arm and beams. Blood smears the front of her chestplate.

Well. Pendergrass is probably going to do fine in a fight.

“Nice work,” Kaidan says.

Shepard’s jury-rigged transponder blinks to life on Kaidan’s HUD, and he nearly sighs in relief. “Scanning the interior.”

The door opens into a tunnel that punches straight into the rock before sloping down and feeding into a compartment a few meters below. Best as he can tell, that’s where they’re holding Shepard. Unknown transponder signals pop up on his HUD display. Eight batarians. Turian lifesigns. Two vorcha, and a krogan.

_Shit._

“Everybody in,” Kaidan murmurs. “Let’s see how long we can hold the element of surprise.”

~

For half a heartbeat, when Shepard’s corona roars, Kaidan just stares. It’s like watching a phoenix burn itself to life, throwing off solar flares as it rises from the ashes. Thick, snapping tendrils of dark energy wreathe his body in a violent second skin, terrifying and glorious all at once. He can’t look away.

“Holy _fuck,”_ one of the marines, Beaudoin, maybe, murmurs over the comm.

Kaidan isn’t the only one who gets caught staring. Despite every weapon in the room trained on Shepard’s uncovered head, not one bullet finds its target in those first, vital seconds.

_His helmet. He needs his helmet!_

The shouting starts.

Shepard lashes out with one arm, sending a tidal wave of dark energy to his left and punting two batarians into the air. One snaps his spine against the mining laser a meter away. The other lands in a heap and is slow to get up.

Kaidan locks eyes on the discarded helmet and flicks his wrist, snaring it in a skein of biotic energy and yanking it towards him. He ducks out from behind the drill the moment it’s in his grasp, firing his pistol with one hand as he barrels towards Shepard.

Not fast enough. Not _fast_ enough. Pendergrass, Wong and Beaudoin all come out shooting, drawing off a considerable amount of fire, but the turian and another batarian both have dead aim on the commander, and Shepard’s looking the wrong direction.

One of Pendergrass’ ECM grenades detonates at their feet, sending a surge of electricity through the air. Overheat klaxons start wailing, and when the turian hits the trigger, nothing happens but an empty click. The batarian roars, drawing his arm back. A hideous, zipping noise rips through the air as twin sawblades running parallel down the batarian’s gauntlet spin up.

Kaidan digs deep into the gravity well, a cold rush of dark energy lighting up his nerves. He lashes the batarian by the wrist before he can land the blow against Shepard’s head.

“Commander!” Kaidan bellows, then tosses the helmet.

Shepard snatches it out of the air and sets it down on his head in one fluid motion. His voice crackles over the comm right as his biofeeds come online. “Right on time, Lieutenant. Anyone got a gun?”

“Here!” Beaudoin cries out from across the room. Somehow he’d managed to get a hold of Shepard’s shotgun from one of the stockpiles. He zags in Shepard’s direction, dodging a vorcha who’d managed to get his hands on a flamethrower.

“Wong!” Kaidan bellows into the comm. “Get on Beaudoin’s six!”

Wong swears and darts out from behind a stack of crates, unloading the clip of his assault rifle. Bullets spray wildly before he manages to focus on his target. The vorcha hisses and whirls, turning the flamethrower towards the hapless private.

Pendergrass lobs another grenade. This one shorts out the vorcha’s shield emitters with a crackle.

“Commander!”

Beaudoin vaults over a crate and tosses Shepard’s shotgun. He catches it with a grin and pumps three quick rounds into one of the batarians closing in. Its transponder winks out, but two others close fast.

“Shepard, two o’clock,” Kaidan calls, flagging the enemy with his targeting software and raising his pistol. Another batarian, whose shields remain intact. Kaidan’s suit VI quickly confirms he can’t deplete them before the sinks overheat, but he can get close enough for an ECM mine to do the rest, leaving him a sitting duck for Shepard’s shotgun. He fires off four quick shots, then thumbs the mine into the pistol’s launch rail and lets it fly.

Shepard’s shotgun barks exactly as Kaidan hoped it would.

One less.

A deep, reptilian voice rumbles with laughter as the krogan steps out from behind an excavator and cocks a shotgun that Kaidan probably couldn’t heft with both hands, even with armored power assist.

“I knew you weren’t just a patrol scout,” the krogan chuffs.

Shepard halts, pivots, corona blazing forth once more. He says something Kaidan doesn’t understand, but the mercenary pauses, then chortles and breaks into a sprint.

Anyone in their right mind would have quailed at the sight of a charging krogan. Shepard grins.

It’s feral.

Confident.

And _utterly_ unafraid.

His fists curl. The gravity well somersaults as Shepard channels a maelstrom of dark energy. Kaidan sucks in a sharp breath, the sheer force of it enough to make him dizzy.

The krogan’s shotgun blares. Every hair on Kaidan’s arms stands on end as Shepard forms a wall of shearing mass effect fields and slams it into the krogan, shoulder jerking as his kinetic barriers absorb the full brunt of the shotgun blast.

The krogan bellows as the shearing fields chew through him. The shotgun drops from rigid fingers and clatters to the ground. Shepard races forward, own shotgun booming as fast as he can pull the trigger. When it overheats he casts it aside, and to Kaidan’s sheer horror, attacks the krogan with his bare hands.

He lands one hit, then two, using his smaller size and quickness to his advantage in ways Kaidan had only dreamed of when he and Shepard had their impromptu sparring session a week ago. Still, the krogan nearly makes it back to his feet before Shepard seizes the barrel of the massive shotgun, jerks it up into the krogan’s throat, then flips it around and fires point blank into the krogan’s uncovered head. Blood, grey matter and bone spray outward. The recoil kicks hard into Shepard’s shoulder, the same one that had already bled off the shotgun pellets.

Holy _fuck._

Kaidan shudders as remnants of dark energy ghost his skin in waves, then snaps back to reality when his biostat monitor beeps. Shepard, and it’s not one flag, but two. His medical exoskeleton reads a fracture in his shoulder and a blood glucose drop. Hell, after a biotic display like _that_ it wouldn’t surprise Kaidan to see Shepard hit the floor. Before he can call the commander’s attention to either, another alert pops up on his combat scanner.

“Wong, watch your flank. Wong! Watch your—”

“Oh _shit!”_

Two enemy flags, another batarian and the turian, close in on Wong, trapping him between supply crates. A hiss and a _thunk_ echo across the comm, followed by a scream. A klaxon blares in his helmet. Suit puncture, Wong.

_Dammit!_

“I’ve got him,” Kaidan says into the comm. “Beaudoin, watch Shepard’s six.”

Kaidan ducks left, using a stack of crates as cover as a round of bullets zing overhead. Kaidan inhales, calling forth his corona. As he steps out from behind the crates he swings a fist up. Dark energy slithers up his arm. The turian yelps in surprise as the mass effect field snares his feet and lifts him into the air, dangling him like a fish on a line.

Kaidan concentrates on maintaining the field as he rushes over to Wong, holstering the pistol in favor of his assault rifle. The moment he spies the batarian he opens fire, placing his body between Wong and the enemy. He re-directs biotic energy towards himself, folding it into a high-gravity field like a shield. Bullets dimple off the curtain of energy.

Kaidan’s rifle pushes dangerously close to overheat. No longer able to hold the telekinetic field and channel the barrier at the same time, he lets the turian plummet back to the ground. He fumbles for an ECM mine, looking for anything to buy him the time he needs to pull Wong out of the open.

A whine followed by a rush of heat ends in a screech, and the batarian flag vanishes off radar.

“Hey!” Pendergrass yells over the comm. “Did you know the mining laser still works?”

Kaidan huffs, hooks his arm under Wong’s shoulders and pulls him behind an old conveyor, barrier winking out as he digs in his bag for the med kit. A trio of flechettes stick out from Wong’s chestplate, with a lot more blood pooling than there should be with the automatic medigel dispensers in his hardsuit. _Ballistic blades_ , Kaidan thinks, feverishly recalling Shepard’s intel. High velocity detachable blade salvo, each one coated with anticoagulants.

He programs a manual dose of medigel and loads it with platelets to try and counteract the bleeding.

“Sir,” Wong chokes out, the fear in his eyes plainly visible through his faceplate.

“You’re ok, Private,” Kaidan assures him, gentle but firm. “Trust me.”

It might be a lie, it might not be. Batarian flechettes are nothing to laugh off. A quick read of his medical scanner suggests the first round of platelets are helping, but they’re not enough. He’s got one more dose he can cook up in the field, but Wong needs a medbay. Fast.

“Shepard, we need to get him out of here. Can you carve a path?”

“Aslany!” Shepard barks into his comm. “Wherever you are, we could use an assist.”

“Alenko!” Pendergrass shouts. “Look out-!”

The flashbang catches the corner of Kaidan’s eye a fraction of a second before it hits. Had he not been focused on Wong, his HUD likely would have identified it and darkened his faceplate. He has only an eyeblink to throw himself over Wong’s body to protect him from the detonation.

Kaidan’s world explodes into searing, blinding white light, like a firebrand to his eyes that punches right through his skull. A shrill, high pitched whine drowns out all other sound.

Desperately he tries to regain control of his senses, unable to bring the room into focus despite knowing that lying here paralyzed is going to get him and Wong both killed.

He fumbles for his pistol, but even if he could get it in his hands he can’t see to target.

As the effects begin to fade, he realizes with sick dread he has bigger problems. A migraine of epic proportions springs violently to life, as though someone drilled through his helmet and split open his skull. Immediately his mexo reacts, injecting him with triptans and NSAIDS, but with an onset this fast, this vicious, it’ll do about as much good as trying to replace a breached bulkhead before the oxygen vents.

 _“Shit_ ,” he mutters, eyes squeezing tightly shut. _Shit._

The white light from the flashbang vanishes, but he can’t open his eyes. There’s no room in his thoughts for anything but the stake twisting apart his skull. He tries again for his pistol, tries to get to his feet, but he’s lost all sense of the room. His biotics are useless, his aim is useless, _all_ of him is useless.

_Wong._

Is he still alive? Is he dead?

Fuck. _Fuck._

A sharp wave of nausea hits. His stomach heaves, ejecting its contents into his helmet. It takes every ounce of restraint he can muster not to open the faceplate in the middle of a firefight. The faint _ping_ of a bullet cuts through the thumping pain in his head. Maybe a pistol. Maybe a sniper rifle. Whether it’s friendly fire or no, he’s in no shape to discern.

A hand falls on his arm. He lashes out, wild, without any sense of who it is or where they are. The hand tightens its grip, not letting go. “Stand down, Alenko,” a voice says. Gruff, low, but familiar. _Shepard_. The commander loops Kaidan’s arm over his head and pulls him to his feet. “I’ve got you. Walk.”

“Wong,” Kaidan manages, digging in his heels before Shepard can get far.

“Aslany’s got him,” Shepard replies. He fires his pistol as they back slowly towards the exit tunnel. “Beaudoin, you got this last asshole?”

“He’s pegged, sir. I’ve got you covered.”

Kaidan tries to focus, but even the dim light of the cavern overwhelms him. He stumbles, dependent on Shepard to remain upright.

“Just keep your feet for a little while longer, Lieutenant,” Shepard murmurs. “Almost there.”

The daylight waiting when they exit the tunnel is almost as bad as the flashbang. Kaidan hisses through his teeth and darkens his faceplate until it’s almost opaque. That shuts out the worst of the light, but it does little for the rank stench of sick coating the inside of his helmet.

He slips on loose gravel when they descend the path down to the Grizzly, but Shepard tightens his grip and doesn’t let him fall. When they finally reach the tank he leans heavily against it, removing his helmet and resisting the urge to chuck it away from him. Eyes closed, he focuses on breathing.

 _In. Out_.

“Wong,” he says aloud, drumbeats sounding in his head. “He needs…more platelets. Or he’ll bleed out.”

“I’ve got it,” Shepard says, voice almost gentle.

“You—”

“I know what to do.”

Kaidan shuts his eyes, helpless to do much aside from waiting.

“He’s holding steady,” Beaudoin reports when Shepard finishes administering the platelets. “But I don’t recommend we drag our feet getting out of here.”

When the hatch opens, Kaidan prepares to climb into the passenger compartment and collapse, but Shepard points him to the co-pilot seat.

“You’re with me,” he says, with that same low voice. “They’ve got their hands full.”

Kaidan has no spare energy to argue, so he crawls into the Grizzly and sags into the seat. Shepard digs out a towel and hands it to him to wipe the mess off his face.

“Your shoulder,” Kaidan mumbles.

“It’s fine,” Shepard assures him, settling in behind the wheel.

“Glucose flag.”

Shepard huffs. “Really? Your head is exploding.”

 _“Glucose_ flag,” Kaidan insists, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Shepard gazes at him for a few seconds before gunning the Grizzly to life. “It’s nothing. I’ve got an energy bar somewhere.”

“Mrrmph.”

“Are _you_ gonna make it?” Shepard asks.

Kaidan curls over and rests his forehead against the console. “If you promise to go around the mountains instead of over them, I might,” he manages through gritted teeth.

Shepard chuckles.

Most of the journey back to the colony, and even back to the _Myeongnyang,_ passes in a blur. It takes all of his energy just to function until he reaches the medbay. Dr. Wendler rattles off treatment options, but all he cares about is shucking off his armor and surrendering to unconsciousness, where at least it’s quiet and dark.

~

The pounding is gone when he wakes up, leaving him wrung out and used up. He blinks, putting a hand to his forehead and groaning a little. His mouth is dry, his stomach unsettled, and everything aches. Nothing he isn’t used to. The lights in the medbay are dim, thankfully, making it a little easier to ease back into his surroundings.

“Feeling better?” a voice asks.

Kaidan jerks, swearing softly as he turns to find Shepard lounging in a chair next to his bedside.

“Commander. What are you doing here?”

Shepard shrugs, a slouch in his posture reminiscent of the way he sat in the Grizzly. Almost…relaxed. “Wanted to make sure you got back on your feet.”

Kaidan sits up, a little too fast. He braces himself with a hand on the mattress as the world spins a little, and Shepard half rises to his feet.

“What about Wong?” Kaidan demands.

Shepard settles back into his chair, posture straighter now, leveling Kaidan with that perceptive stare. “He’s fine. You saved his life. They treated him on Mindoir. He’s back on the _Madrid_ and we’re docking to pick him up in a few hours.”

Kaidan exhales heavily, settling back onto his elbows. “I thought I’d gotten him killed.”

“You?” Shepard asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Beaudoin and I were worried he might flake. We were right. I should have been watching him more closely.” _And not staring at you._ “Then to make it worse I got so target locked treating him I didn’t see the flashbang until it was too late.”

Shepard’s expression, usually so inscrutable, softens. “Wong’s the one who didn’t pay attention and put himself in a bad spot. Easy mistake for someone without a lot of experience in the field. You saved his ass, and risked yourself in the process.”

Kaidan grimaces. “The side effects of my implant created a liability that nearly cost us the mission.”

Shepard shifts in his chair. “I’m the one who put everyone in danger. You were right. The plan was risky.”

“And reckless.”

“Well, damn,” Shepard says with a chuckle. “Please, speak freely.”

Maybe it’s the hangover from the migraine. Maybe it’s the residual anger from watching his XO hand himself over to the enemy. Maybe some of the drug cocktail is still in his system. But he plows right on ahead, leaving his regrets for later.

“You were giving them _real_ intel, Shepard. You put the entire colony at risk if we hadn’t pulled that off!”

“Yeah,” he says after a pause. “I needed to have something they wanted. If it helps…I had Pendergrass send a message to Monroe that if I didn’t come back, they should assume their protocols were compromised.”

Kaidan stares. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I figured having a pretty genuine reason for you to be pissed at me might come in handy if your infiltration failed. Help me earn their favor and such if you or the rest of the squad ended up compromised.”

“So you _used_ me.”

“I didn’t use you,” Shepard snaps. “I put the chess pieces on the board where I needed them to be.”

“We’re not chess pieces,” Kaidan argues. “We’re _people_. We’re your _team._ ”

“All right, go on,” Shepard says, with a curt wave. “Give me all of it. God forbid you hold anything back.”

“The whole plan was reckless and stupid and it never should have even been on the table. It was a big risk even if everything went _right,_ and you of all people know that most things don’t go right.” Kaidan takes a deep breath. “But it worked. And what’s more…seeing you in action. I think even if a few more things _had_ gone wrong, you’d have figured it out on the fly.”

A half-smile curves his lips. “Better be careful, Lieutenant. I might take that as a compliment.”

“You took on a _krogan_ hand to hand.” He can’t help some of the awe that slips into his voice. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or just…insane.”

Shepard shrugs. “Between the biotic training and assault training for the N program I’ve had a lot of practice. Not many krogan expect a human to understand their fighting style. I use it to my advantage.”

“And you _speak_ krogan?” Kaidan asks, remembering the alien retort Shepard had made before the krogan charged.

“I studied krogan linguistics for N2.”

Kaidan nods, digesting this. “That shotgun…how’s your shoulder?”

“Fine,” Shepard says, with that level gaze. “Nothing a bone knitter can’t fix.”

“How did that recoil not _shatter_ your arm?”

“I know how to fire it.” He shrugs. “I specialized in advanced weapons training for N4.”

“I’m starting to wonder if there’s anything you can’t do.”

A smile flashes across his face. “Cook.”

Kaidan huffs, then rubs a temple, the residual, dull ache of the migraine still lingering. “I still think it was too big of a risk. But…you pulled it off.”

“To be fair, a bullet to my head _would_ have been a little hard to walk off,” Shepard admits. “Could have pretty easily gone sideways. But I was right about the other thing, too. The squad was in good hands.”

“Until the flashbang.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself.” He leans in a little. “You told me you don’t use biotics on living targets. I happened to see a turian dangling from a noose of kinetic energy at some point, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it.”

Kaidan looks down at his hand and flexes his wrist, sending a ripple through the gravity well. “Wong was in trouble.”

“And you did what you had to.” The half-smile threatens again. “Seems like we both learned a little something on that drop.”

“Now who needs to be careful about compliments?”

Shepard huffs, gaze flicking briefly to his hands. “Don’t let it get around. Might tarnish the Butcher persona.”

“That…might not be a bad thing.” Kaidan recalls his conversation with Pendergrass. “The squad’s not sure where they stand with you. Are you watching their backs or throwing them to the wolves?”

Holy fuck is he going to have a lot of regrets when the drugs are out of his system.

Shepard levels him with that directed energy stare. “How would you answer that question?”

Kaidan swallows. What he wouldn’t give for a glass of water. “I…trust you.”

Shepard nods. “Good. We accomplished the mission. Wiped out their foothold. Monroe’s unit is mopping up and sealing off the tunnel, and the _Madrid_ is sending down a platoon to hunt down any others. While we were groundside the _Myeongnyang_ took out a pirate ship that we think was bringing reinforcements.”

“Good to know.”

“We’re a good team, Alenko. Wasn’t sure if you’d keep up or not, but you did. That was a nice trick with my helmet.” Shepard gets to his feet. “Get some rest. We’ll have more days like this.”

“ _How_ much like this?” Kaidan asks, hoping Shepard doesn’t catch the flush at the back of his neck.

“A _lot_ like this. Welcome to the fire, Lieutenant.”

“See you later, Commander.”

~

The summons from Captain Oseguera comes two days after the dust settles. This time when he enters her office, a cup of tea waits on his side of the desk.

“I forgot to ask you if you have any preferences,” she asks, leaning back in her chair. “I took a guess with lemongrass.”

“Good guess,” Kaidan says, taking his own seat.

“Noted.” She leans her elbows on the desk. Just like last time, her own cup sits forgotten off to the side. “So. Let’s not beat around the bush. I read your debrief, but especially given how it all played out, I thought we should talk face to face.”

“There’s not much that isn’t already in the report,” Kaidan tells her. “It was a risky plan, but we pulled it off. Pendergrass, Aslany and Beaudoin all performed exactly as we hoped. They did a hell of a job down there.”

“And Wong?”

“He…made a mistake,” Kaidan says. “And he paid the price for it. Wasn’t Shepard’s fault. If anything, it was mine for not keeping a closer eye on him. I saw a few caution flags before we went in, but not enough to bench him. Maybe I should have.”

“Never know what a kid’s going to do under fire until he’s under fire,” Oseguera assures him. “Sometimes they don’t handle it.”

“Yes, sir.”

She sits back in her chair, hand to her chin. “The commander noted an objection to his orders in his report. _Your_ objection.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan says, shifting in his seat. “I thought the risks were too high. Shepard disagreed.”

“But?” she prods.

“But…he _listened_ to me. He was open to suggestions.” Kaidan huffs. “I just didn’t have anything viable. He was willing to make the hard call. I wanted to make the safe one.”

“I see,” she replies.

“He never hesitated,” Kaidan goes on, the memory of that _smirk_ before all hell cut loose now a permanent fixture in his brain. “It was a hell of a thing to see him fight. Everyone in that room thought he was the one in trouble. In the end I think he was the only one who _wasn’t_ in danger. But the moment someone on the squad needed help he changed gears. If I may be so bold, sir…”

“Please,” she says with a gesture.

“I don’t know what happened on Torfan. Not my business. But he’s not what I expected. He’s a _strategist._ Sees the whole board, and uses it. A little too reckless for my tastes, but he didn’t bust my ass when I said so. I think we make a good team. The squad, I mean,” he adds hastily.

She nods, expression shrewd. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Kaidan takes his mug with him when he gets up. “Thanks for the tea.”

“Oh, dammit,” she exclaims, looking at her own cooled cup. Kaidan smiles.

The sight of Shepard’s corona burning to life in the cavern haunts the back of his mind as he leaves her office.

 _We’ll have a lot more days like this_ , Shepard had told him.

As much as he never wants a repeat of Mindoir, he’s forced to admit…he’s kind of looking forward to what Shepard might do next.

_Welcome to the fire, indeed._


	4. Dance With Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crew relations get a little dicey, and some problems you just can't solve with a gun. 
> 
> aka, Kaidan is a god-tier poker player, and you cannot change my mind.

_Cause we dance with darkness_   
_Make deals with the devil_   
_Head back home from dropping pebbles_   
_In rivers that don’t flow_   
_'Cause here we go_   
_So come on baby, we're going down slow_

x

**Dance With Darkness**

It starts in the armory. Aslany has meticulously checked the squad’s preferred loadouts a dozen times, even Shepard’s, who gets snarky as fuck when someone touches his gear, but Wong demands she run a complete systems check on his again. The hand on his pistol shakes when he plants three simulated rounds in the target while she watches, arms crossed. His other hand scratches at his chest.

Three fingers, spread to about the precise distance of the set of the batarian flechettes that had been sticking out of his chestplate three weeks ago.

Could be coincidence.

 _Could_ be.

But he’s sweating in a cool room, and each shot misses the bullseye. One misses the target entirely.

“You good?” she asks.

“Targeting VI’s still off,” he snaps.

The targeting software’s perfect, and she’s about to tell him how many dicks he can eat when Pendergrass practically skips into the armory, in mid-babble about a modification she wants to make to the heat sink on her rifle.

Sometimes Pendergrass forgets there are people _outside_ her head she needs to explain things to.

While Aslany resets her and gets her to start from the beginning, Wong racks his rifle and walks away, still scratching his chest.

She almost tells Beaudoin about it. But that night in the mess, Wong grins and laughs at his own stupid joke about elcor strippers before throwing a tater tot in the air and missing it completely when it comes back down.

He’s normal.

Totally normal.

But faking normal is easy. You can fake it for a long time, even in front of people who should see through it.

Still…maybe it’s nothing.

~

It’s not nothing.

The next morning during Shepard’s ass o’clock drills, Beaudoin goes in for a jab on the sparring mat and Wong _decks_ him, full force, right in the jaw. It cracks like a stick.

Aslany’s never seen Beaudoin pissed before, and she’s fuckin’ tried, just to see if it’s possible. What makes it worse, he can’t yell with that busted jaw. Wong apologizes, profusely, eyes wide like he might even mean it, but Beaudoin shrugs him off.

“What the hell happened?” Shepard demands.

She almost tells him the truth. But Wong isn’t a dumb kid like she was, who didn’t know how to take a punch or give one back. Aslany hadn’t had a career in front of her, with everything to lose. The Butcher of Torfan’ll chew Wong’s ass up and spit him out without thinking twice.

Some things you can’t unfuck if you say them out loud.

So Aslany lets Wong stammer out a response while she takes Beaudoin to the medbay. Kind of a good thing it hurts to talk, otherwise Beaudoin might ask what got into him.

She’s pretty sure she knows.

And it ain’t good.

~

Alenko’s still in the locker room after the others head out to the mess for dinner. Beaudoin’s jaw works again, and he must feel bad about actually having a temper like a normal human being, because he makes a point of inviting Wong to a game of pool in the lounge.

Sometimes she thinks Beaudoin’s their self-appointed babysitter.

But Alenko…he might be the kind of guy she can talk to.

“LT,” she says, as he pulls a fresh shirt over his head.

“Yeah,” he replies, voice muffled. She gives him a second to figure out how shirts work. Alenko may be good in a fight, but he’s about as intimidating as belly button lint. If you don’t think too hard about the wetware hardwired into his brain.

“What’s up?” he asks.

Fuck. _Fuck._

“Nothing,” she mutters, and slams her locker shut.

~

Beaudoin’s a goddamned babysitter, all right. He watches Wong like a hawk when they board a derelict freighter found adrift in Argos Rho. Supply ship, on its way back to Benning from Intai'sei.

Shepard leads the way through the airlock, with Pendergrass on his six, followed by Wong, Beaudoin, Aslany, and Alenko bringing up the rear.

No one’s saying it got sacked by batarians, but Shepard’s ass is clenched so tight he might actually snap the stick up there, and that murder stare of his could peel back deckplates. Alenko keeps insisting biotics can’t fry brains, but Aslany sure as hell isn’t staying in Shepard’s sightline long enough to find out.

The ship is empty. The corridors echo with the whir of air circulators and the creak of metal. Why the fuck do ships creak so much?

Wong grips his rifle tight as they walk, finger on the trigger. The barrel weaves as he searches side to side. She follows it, chewing her lip.

“Wong, you good?” Alenko asks from the rear.

Wong nearly cracks his head on the ceiling, but he swallows and squawks out an affirmative. Aslany doesn’t have a read on anyone’s biometrics aside from the one that informs her everyone is still alive, but the LT no doubt has a face full of medical data scrolling past his HUD.

The armory, however, is under her purview, which means she has administrative access to everyone’s weapon software.

She pulls up her omnitool. A few keystrokes later, she takes a deep breath.

“Alenko,” Shepard barks. “Take Pendergrass and check the cargo bay. Wong, Aslany, crew quarters. Beaudoin, you’re with me. We’re heading for the bridge. Stay in contact. Look for any survivors.”

“Aye, sir,” they answer in chorus.

Beaudoin’s eyes flick to Wong. He almost opens his mouth to protest, but one look at Shepard and he closes it.

The Butcher of Torfan isn’t someone you question. How Alenko manages to do it without dying is beyond her.

Aslany swallows back a small sigh of relief. If Beaudoin had spoken up, and Shepard stuck Wong with anyone else, she’d have some explaining to do.

They split off from the main group and head towards the crew quarters.

“You’re jumpy,” she mutters.

“No more than you,” he retorts. “Why the fuck does everyone try to keep holding my hand?”

“’Cause you seem…scared.”

He tightens his grip on his rifle. “Not scared. Let’s go.”

Crew quarters are empty. Rumpled sheets, clothes strewn on the floor, and general disarray suggest whoever slept here had been in a hurry to wake up.

Wong approaches a row of storage lockers. Two flechettes jut out from one of them, with a spatter of dried blood smeared across the locker’s surface. He runs gauntleted fingers along the detached blades.

A loud _bang_ nearly sends them both through the roof. Wong yells, bringing his rifle to bear as something, some _one,_ pounds on the metal locker from the inside.

“ _Help me, please!”_

Wong’s finger is on the trigger, it’s _on the trigger,_ but Aslany bats his gun hand aside in a mad dive for the locker. She’s not sure if the trigger clicks. Did it click? Did he pull it?

Fuck, did he pull the trigger?

She wrenches the locker open. A kid tumbles out, a boy, maybe eight, maybe twelve? She doesn’t know jack about kids. A mess comes out with him; she gags as it smacks the olfactory sensors of her hardsuit. The kid’s been stuffed in there with his own filth.

“Help,” he gasps. “ _Help!_ Where’s my dad? _Where is he?_ ”

“Commander,” she barks into her comm. “Found someone. Alenko, he’s gonna need you.”

The team beats feet to Aslany’s location. Good thing, because this kid’s hysterical and she doesn’t know what to do. Wong sags against the bulkhead, staring at his rifle.

Aslany doesn’t dare touch the kid. Instead she tries to placate him with, “you’re ok, it’s gonna be ok,” because it’s all she’s got.

Shepard gets there first, pistol raised, but at the sight of the kid he holsters it in the blink of an eye and drops to his knee right in front of him, paying no heed to the reek or the mess on the floor. To Aslany’s further shock, he pulls off his helmet and sets it aside.

“Hey,” he says, in a voice that sounds nothing like Shepard at all. “What’s your name?”

“Ivan,” the kid stammers.

“Nice to meet you, Ivan. I’m Sam. We’re here to help you, okay? Gonna get you to safety.”

Alenko finds them, with Pendergrass on his heels. The LT pulls up short at the sight, eyes widening a little. The kid grabs Shepard’s hand and sidles behind him.

Imagine thinking the safest person in the room is the Butcher of Torfan. Fuck.

“Where’s my dad?” the kid begs. “He told me to hide, said don’t come out until help came. Where’s my dad?”

Shepard’s expression softens. “He’s not here. But you are, and you’re safe.”

“No,” the kid says with a wild shake of his head. “He was _here.”_

“I’m sorry,” Shepard says. He puts his hands on Ivan’s shoulders and looks him right in the eye. “Ivan, I’m sorry. He’s gone. Everyone on the ship is gone. But we came to get you, and you’re going to be ok. This guy here? This is Kaidan. He’s a medic. He’s gonna check you out, and we’re gonna take you back to our ship and get you home. Okay? You’re safe. Nothing’s going to happen to you. You did good. Your dad would be proud.”

Kaidan takes a cautious step forward. The kid hunches, but Shepard whispers something in his ear and he nods. Alenko kneels down with his omnitool out, but when Shepard tries to stand, the kid tightens his grip. So Shepard stays, waves them off to do one last sweep and head back to the _‘Yang._

They find nothing. Pirates stripped the ship, took the crew, and left behind one terrified kid stewing in his own shit. A terrified kid who’s afraid to let go of the Butcher of Torfan.

A terrified kid Wong almost shot.

No…he _had_ shot him. She heard the click.

Quietly, she opens her omnitool, and re-enables his ammo block.

~

Kaidan stares at the bunk above him, attempting sleep until the chronometer hits 01:00. He hasn’t done his late night biotic drills since the sparring session with Shepard, but learning how to sleep through eight years of conditioning himself to be awake is harder than he thought it would be. Especially when he can’t fall asleep to begin with.

The kid in the medbay is seven. _Seven._ Best they can tell, he’d been trapped in that locker for almost four days. Shepard had carried him through the airlock onto the _‘Yang,_ and hadn’t let go of his hand until Dr. Wendler gave him a sedative to knock him out.

Not a sight Kaidan’s going to forget anytime soon.

He gives up on sleep and heads for the mess, with half a mind to cook something. For once he’s not that hungry, but it’s either that or biotic drills, and he’d said he’d quit the drills.

When he enters the mess, Shepard already sits at one of the tables, head in a hand, idly skimming a datapad. The moment their biotic fields brush against each other he looks up, with recognition rather than surprise.

“Can’t sleep either?” Kaidan asks, heading to the galley.

“No,” Shepard replies. “I don’t usually find survivors.”

“Yeah…can’t imagine what that kid’s been through.”

Shepard grunts in response, distracted gaze going back to the datapad. He’s paler than normal, and the hand scrolling the datapad shakes. Kaidan frowns, that first morning on Arcturus immediately coming to mind. But the roll in Shepard’s shoulders is loose rather than hunched, closer to fatigue than tension. In the bar, Shepard’s gaze had been so laser-focused he had tunnel vision. Here, his eyes wander.

Shepard hadn’t been at dinner tonight, either. Kaidan almost _never_ sees Shepard eat, despite attempts to get him to join the squad for meals.

Kaidan opens one of the cabinets and digs into the supplies he’d requested from Navarro, along with a saucepan.

“Any chance the captain can trace where the ship that hit ‘em might have gone?” he asks.

“She’s looking, but she won’t find anything.” Shepard rubs his forehead and sighs. “They never do.”

Kaidan falls silent and focuses on the skillet. He knows the recipe by heart, even though it’s been a long time since he’s made it. He follows each step, removes a glop of dough from the pan, rolls it in a mixture of crushed peanuts and sugar and drops it on a plate.

“Hungry?”

Shepard looks up, only now appearing to notice Kaidan is cooking. He raises his head and sniffs the air a little. “What is it?”

“Muah Chee. Rice balls,” he explains at Shepard’s confused look. “My dad was stationed in Singapore for a while, and I developed a taste for it. Easy to fix, if you have the right ingredients. Thanks to Navarro, I do.”

He hands Shepard the plate.

“Here. Try it.”

Shepard takes it, somewhat suspiciously.

Kaidan chuckles. “Boy, ship life really has ruined your sense of culinary adventure.”

Shepard gives him a withering look before popping the rice ball in his mouth, almost out of spite. He chews thoughtfully. “Ok. Not bad.”

“Told you I could cook.”

Kaidan transfers the remaining rice balls to a fresh plate and sits down across from Shepard, pushing it to the center of the table. “Help yourself.”

Shepard takes another one, still eyeing it carefully before eating it.

“What’s the _MSV_ _Harrington?_ ” Kaidan asks, catching sight of the datapad.

“Nothing.” Shepard shoves the datapad out of the way, expression darkening.

 _Line crossed_. Kaidan backs off. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to read over your shoulder.”

Shepard waves a hand and takes another rice ball off the plate. “It’s fine. Just…been a long day.”

They both look up when Pendergrass darts into the mess in PT shorts and a t-shirt, freshly roused from sleep. She makes a beeline for Kaidan, panic in her eyes.

“LT, need you in the barracks.”

Kaidan hits his feet and is halfway across the mess before he answers, with Shepard on his heels.

“Sitrep,” Kaidan demands.

“It’s Wong.”

As they reach the corridor, he doesn’t need her to explain further. The private’s screaming fills in the gaps. A handful of other bleary-eyed crewman spill into the corridor, all blinking and anxious.

Inside the barracks, Beaudoin gets as close as he dares, trying to pin down Wong’s flailing limbs, shouting his name in an effort to wake him up. He’s drenched in sweat, thrashing all of his limbs.

“I’ll get the doc,” Shepard says under his breath. “Do what you can.”

Kaidan nods without turning around.

“Beaudoin,” Kaidan says, voice low but firm. “Stand down. Grabbing him will only make it worse.” He slides between bunks on the opposite side, ducking to avoid Wong’s hand as he lashes out, swings around and rakes at his chest. As gently as possible, Kaidan touches Wong’s shoulder.

“Genjo,” he says, grimacing as Wong strikes him hard in the forearm. “It’s ok. You’re safe.”

He repeats the words over and over, making three attempts to catch the private’s hand before finally succeeding on the fourth try. He holds onto it for all he’s worth. “Genjo,” he says again, still gentle, but firmer this time. “I’ve got you. _Genjo_. You’re safe.”

After several painful moments, the marine finally opens his eyes, gasping for breath, looking around wildly in confusion.

“Alenko?” he asks, baffled. Kaidan lets go of his hand. On the other side of his bed, Beaudoin sags against the wall in relief.

“You were having a night terror, Private. Take a deep breath.”

Wong wipes some of the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. As he goes to mop it up with his shirt his eyes widen. There’s blood on it.

“What the—”

“You were scratching your chest,” Aslany speaks up from a spot against the wall. She runs a hand through her disheveled hair, expression distraught.

Wong pulls his shirt up to reveal long, ugly scratch marks. While the wounds from the batarian flechettes have long since vanished, Kaidan doesn’t need to be told the marks line up.

A wide beam of light falls on them as the door to the barracks swish open. Dr. Wendler pushes through the milling crewman, tucking a lock of dark hair over her ear, while Shepard remains outside the door.

“Private Wong?” she asks. If Shepard had woken her up, there’s no trace of grogginess to be found in her face.

“I…I don’t know what’s going on,” he mumbles, looking around in horror at the staring eyes of his crewmates.

“You’re all right,” she says, a smile on her face that reminds Kaidan of his mother’s. “How about we get you checked out?”

She offers a hand to help ease him out of bed and escorts him to the door, mouthing a thank you at Kaidan on her way out.

Once they’ve rounded the corner, Shepard scans the wide-eyed and bewildered bystanders, who have started whispering to each other in earnest. Kaidan catches the word _Mindoir_ more than once.

“As you were, everyone,” Shepard says in a tone that brokers no argument, and with a few murmurs everyone starts filing back to their racks. Over the din, he catches Kaidan’s eye and motions for him to follow.

The mess is still quiet, the remnants of the rice balls still sitting on their platter. Kaidan begins cleaning them up.

“I’ll draw up a report for the Captain,” Shepard says, putting a few of the ingredients back where they belong. “I’m sure she’ll want your thoughts in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan says with a sigh.

“Nice work bringing him out of it.”

Kaidan snaps a lid over a container with the remaining rice balls. “Didn’t stop him from hurting himself, so not sure I deserve much kudos.”

A hint of a smile crosses his face, accompanied by a shake of his head. “You don’t know how to take a compliment, do you?”

A flush creeps up Kaidan’s neck. “I’ve had…concerns since Mindoir. I should have followed up.”

“I get the feeling this isn’t the first time you’ve handled something like this.”

Kaidan shrugs, disposing of the dirty plate in the waste reclaimer. “Dump a bunch of scared kids with magic space powers no one knows how to use together on an asteroid, and it’s no surprise a few of them have the occasional night terror.”

Before he can say more, a small scuff on the other side of the room calls attention to Aslany, who hovers in the doorway.

“Need something, Private?” Shepard asks.

She looks nervously at the commander before shifting her gaze back to Kaidan. “I….maybe some coffee or something. Think I’m gonna give up on rack time for a bit.”

Kaidan recalls the moment in the locker room the other day, when she’d started to say something and changed her mind. Kaidan catches the commander’s eye. Shepard nods almost imperceptibly, and heads for his quarters.

“See you in the morning,” he calls over his shoulder.

Kaidan turns his attention to Aslany, and puts the container on the table. “I’m not quite ready to sleep yet, myself. Care to join me?”

She hesitates again, but then nods. Kaidan sits, and pushes out the leg of a second chair with his foot. When she takes the seat, he pops open the lid to the rice balls and slides it towards her.

“Something on your mind, Aslany?”

She picks at a rice ball, takes a deep breath, and nods.

~

Captain Oseguera taps her foot as she scrolls through Wong’s file. A full cup of tea sits ignored on her desk. She hasn’t sat down since Kaidan and Shepard came in. Shepard stands at attention, posture solid as a stone, though the gravity well pulses as he toys with it. Shepard worries gravity around in his fingers like a loose thread so frequently, sometimes Kaidan isn’t sure he realizes he’s doing it.

“And Private Aslany reported the incident on the freighter?” Oseguera asks without looking up.

Kaidan nods. “She was concerned about his mental state, and disabled his ammo block.”

“And didn’t report it until now.”

“No, ma’am.”

Oseguera sighs. “Ok. I’m going to issue Wong’s transfer to the _Madrid_ to undergo a full psych eval. Aslany gets a reprimand. If Wong’s not fit for combat he puts the whole team in danger, and by not speaking up, so did she.”

Kaidan’s eyes dart to Shepard, wondering yet again if he knows how closely Oseguera has been watching _him_ for the same things.

“The crew isn’t going to like this,” the captain says. “I’m relying on you two to help keep morale up. Commander – will you find Aslany and send her to me?”

Shepard nods.

“Dismissed.”

Kaidan sighs when they exit the briefing room and head for the elevator. “Well. That could have gone better, could have gone worse.”

“As expected,” Shepard replies. He looks ahead, stride long and purposeful. This is the Shepard who is more akin to a brick wall. Nothing gets out, nothing goes in. It’s such a far cry from the man who’d sat in the mess last night, or been joyriding in the Grizzly on Mindoir, Kaidan almost can’t believe it’s the same person.

“I can get Aslany,” Kaidan offers.

Shepard shakes his head. “Captain likes that she confided in you. That’s why she’s making me the bad guy.”

“And you’re…ok with just being the bad guy.”

“If it’s what they need, it’s fine.”

_The last thing they need is to think you’re the enemy, especially when I’m afraid they already do._

“Shepard—”

“Do you have to question everything I say?” Shepard demands. “I do occasionally know what I’m doing, you know.”

Kaidan stops, taken aback. “No. Sorry, sir.”

“I’m their XO. Not their friend.”

“Yes, sir.”

Shepard scrutinizes him carefully. Nothing in his expression changes, but his voice thaws just a fraction. “Aslany trusts you. Everyone needs someone they can trust.”

Kaidan opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, so he nods instead. Is he talking about Aslany? Or is there more to it? With Shepard he always suspects the latter, but never knows for sure.

The elevator arrives. Neither of them say a word as they ride it to the crew deck, where Kaidan exits and Shepard continues on to the armory. Aslany is down there, syncing the new targeting software they’d received yesterday. When the elevator door slides shut, Kaidan exhales deeply.

Sometimes a conversation with Shepard is more of a workout than an actual fight.

~

Wong is off the ship in two hours, and it isn’t smooth.

“You can’t do this,” he sputters when Shepard comes to the barracks to escort him. Kaidan follows him in, but the room is otherwise clear save for the marine squad. Beaudoin helps him pack, Pendergrass hangs in a corner, while Aslany stands just outside the door, staring at her feet.

“You have your orders, Private,” Shepard informs him. Doesn’t help that his expression is carved stone, exactly what everyone sees in the vids.

“You can’t _do_ this. It was a nightmare! You’re gonna cat-six me over a _nightmare?”_

“It’s not a cat-six,” Beaudoin offers. “It’s an eval.”

“Over a fucking _nightmare.”_

“It’s more than a nightmare, Genjo,” Kaidan says quietly.

“Bullshit. I helped find that kid. You wanna cat-six me for helping a kid?”

“You _shot_ him!”

Everyone turns to Aslany, now standing in the doorway, face red with rage, fists clenched at her sides. “You pulled the fucking trigger and you know it. You’d have _shot_ him if it weren’t for me.”

Wong’s eyes widen. “I didn’t. I almost, but I did—”

“I nuked your ammo block,” she blurts out. “I was _there._ You pulled the trigger. You would have killed that kid.”

Wong’s face pales. “No. That’s not what happened.”

Beaudoin puts a hand on Wong’s shoulder. He shrugs it off.

“We just wanna help you.”

“Oh, _fuck_ you, Clay,” Wong retorts. “You know—”

“Enough,” Shepard says, voice a low, threatening rumble. “Wong, you’re with me.”

When Wong doesn’t move, Shepard clamps a hand on his arm. “Move, Private.”

Wong locks eyes with Aslany. “This is your fault. _Your_ fault. I didn’t shoot anybody. It was just a nightmare.”

“Hey,” Beaudoin says, brow furrowed. “She just wanted to h—”

“As you _were_ , marines,” Shepard barks, and directs Wong to the door.

Beaudoin’s mouth snaps shut. Aslany’s eyes burn, but she says nothing and moves out of the way as they pass.

“Wong!” Pendergrass calls after him. Wong looks over his shoulder but doesn’t get a chance to speak before they round the corner and disappear from view. Shepard never slows, and never lightens his hold.

Pendergrass stares after them, distress etched on her young features. “So that’s it? He’s just _gone?_ ”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Beaudoin mutters, kicking a footlocker. “You start dancin’ with darkness and the Alliance rips up your dance card. Do we really think having the Butcher of Torfan give that kid the boot is what he needed?”

“Easy, Chief,” Kaidan cautions, mind racing. _This is something we need to get a handle on._

“He didn’t care at all,” Pendergrass murmurs, pressing her knuckles into her chin. “He was part of our squad and Shepard didn’t care at _all._ ”

“Cannon fodder,” Beaudoin says under his breath, before striding out of the barracks without a second glance.

 _Damnit._ Kaidan rakes a hand through his hair and exhales.

“Is that what we are?” Pendergrass asks, eyes wide.

“No,” Kaidan tells her. “Of course not.” _There’s a person under there. I’ve seen him._

But the others haven’t, and that’s something Kaidan needs to change, soon, or Wong will only be the start of their problems.

~

The crew deck feels more like a wake at dinner that evening. Pendergrass, Beaudoin and a couple of the engine crew – Brooks and Lozano, maybe? – sit at one table looking glum. Aslany sits at another by herself, shoulders slumped, pushing some mashed potatoes around on a plate. Kaidan gets his own tray and takes a seat across from her. She doesn’t push the chair out for him.

“Hey,” he says.

“Sir,” she mumbles, stabbing at a green bean.

“You made the right call,” Kaidan says, gently. “And you did it knowing it wouldn’t reflect well on you.”

“I got him kicked off the ship,” she says bitterly.

“You sounded the alarm to get him the help he needs.”

“Don’t think he sees it that way.”

“No,” Kaidan agrees, which surprises her enough that she looks up. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do. Hopefully, given time and treatment, he’ll recognize what you did for what it really was, and realize he was lucky you cared.”

She looks back down at her plate, but her next jab with the fork has a little less aggression to it.

“You ever been wounded?” she asks, catching Kaidan off guard.

“I—yeah. I have,” he says, frowning a little at the memory. “Boarded a stolen freighter harboring fugitives. Ended in a firefight. My shield emitters overloaded, and I took a slug to the shoulder.”

“Serious?”

“Well,” he says with a half-smile. “Sure felt that way at the time.”

The unframed question rests on her lips.

“It hits everyone differently,” he explains. “But it always hits.”

She nods, though doesn’t look very satisfied. “ _He_ seems immune to it.”

Kaidan looks over his shoulder in the direction she indicates as Shepard strides into the mess. Everyone sits a little straighter, Aslany included, but the commander doesn’t notice. After looking over the options for the evening, he grimaces, puts down his tray and walks out.

Kaidan thinks of Arcturus, and the sight of Shepard hunched over at a booth in that dingy bar, holding onto a bottle like it might save his life.

“It always hits,” he repeats softly.

He directs his attention back to Aslany. “Soldiers get hurt. Soldiers die. Nothing you haven’t heard a thousand times before.”

She huffs, puncturing another green bean and jamming it into the potatoes.

“But,” he goes on, “you have a team at your back who’ll stop at nothing to get everyone home safe.”

“So the Butcher of Torfan is a team player now,” she mutters.

“That’s your commanding officer you’re talking about, marine,” he says, voice low but with enough of an edge to it that her expression goes from dour to blank.

“Shepard got us all out of that mine,” Kaidan informs her. “He’s got your back. And mine.”

She nods, eyes downcast, burying the fork in a mountain of mashed potatoes.

“You know, you’re supposed to eat that, not finger paint with it.”

“I’m using a fork,” she protests.

He chuckles a little in spite of himself, then leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest, idea forming in the back of his mind. “Are you any good at poker, Aslany?”

That gets her. She looks up sharply, suspicion in her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because we’re going to play, tonight. Drinks on me.”

She glances around. “There isn’t exactly a bar on board.”

“No. But I have a nice bottle in my locker I’m willing to share.” He looks over his shoulder at the other table. Not surprisingly, they’re listening. “Tonight. Twenty-one hundred. I’ll bring the cards.”

The nice thing about being an officer is that no one is really going to tell him no.

~

Except Shepard. Shepard could tell him no. Kaidan needs him to say yes.

“Poker?” he asks, eyebrow raised. “You?”

“That much of a stretch?”

Shepard folds his arms across his chest, leaning lazily against a bulkhead. One finger quirks, and the gravity well stirs. “Maybe.”

“Well, then, you don’t have to worry about losing your shirt.”

The eyebrow raises higher, and another flush creeps up the back of Kaidan’s neck.

“I’m not much for poker,” Shepard says.

“It’s not about playing poker,” Kaidan replies, trying not to let his frustration creep into his voice. Shepard’s expression shifts ever so slightly. It’s subtle, but Kaidan is getting better at spotting it. “The crew needs a boost. And I’ve overheard a few things I don’t like. It would be good for them to get to spend a little time around you off duty.”

This time the shift isn’t subtle. The brick wall reappears. “I see.”

“Yes, _that_ ,” Kaidan says, gesturing with his arm. “That’s what they see. Like it or not they _see_ the Butcher.”

“I don’t need their—"

“Yeah, I know,” Kaidan says, holding up one hand. “You’re their XO. Not their friend. But as their XO, they need to believe you’ve got their backs, and they don’t.”

Shepard regards him silently.

Where the hell is the person who shows up in the mess late at night? The one who smiles on occasion, listens to every word he has to say, asks questions and cares about the answers. When he lowers the shield emitters, even a little, it’s a lot easier to believe a platoon of soldiers threw themselves into the lion’s den on his order. Shepard has a way of making people believe, without even trying.

Imagine what he could do if he _tries_.

“You said everyone needs someone they can trust. Well, they need to trust _you_ ,” Kaidan insists.

Shepard nods slowly, gaze still shrewd. “I’ll think about it.”

As he walks away, Kaidan can’t help but wonder if he’s accidentally tripped an emergency failsafe somewhere in Shepard’s complicated wiring. Once he’s alone, he exhales slowly.

_Well. Guess we’ll see._

~

As he expects, Aslany, Pendergrass and Beaudoin show up in the mess promptly at 21:00, milling uncertainly until Kaidan strides in, promised bottle in his hands. It’s whiskey, _good_ whiskey, and while this isn’t exactly how he imagined drinking it, it’s a worthy cause.

He sets the bottle on the table and continues into the galley, searching for a few coffee mugs to pour it in. Once he grasps a few precariously in his hands, the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Shepard looms at the entrance to the mess.

“Going to join us, Commander?” Kaidan asks, heart beating a little faster. The small group stiffens a little. _Come on,_ Kaidan thinks.

Shepard shrugs and ambles towards the table. “I kind of feel like you playing poker is something I have to see.”

He gets a few nervous laughs. Kaidan sets the mugs on the table and cracks open the bottle, hiding a smile.

Shepard is certainly not the first to assume Kaidan is an easy mark, but coming from the man able to divine everything there is to know about a person with one glance, he’s perhaps the most satisfying. The marines are about to find out that behind the Butcher of Torfan is a human being who can lose at poker just like the rest of them.

Kaidan pours whiskey into one of the mugs and hands it to Shepard. The commander takes it warily, as if sensing he’s entered enemy territory with bad intel.

The thing about BAaT is that outside of their physical and mental training, there hadn’t been much to _do._ Stick a bunch of teenagers on a hollowed out asteroid and they’re going to get bored, no matter how scared and traumatized they are. A few of them had channeled that boredom into creative rule breaking, others had cured it with more old-fashioned methods.

Kaidan had gotten _really_ good at poker.

It only takes a few hands to build a mental database of anyone he plays with. Patterns, preferences, tells. He’s learned to spot them all. But what really shocks the hell out of people is his ability to bluff.

 _That’s_ what he’d devoted most of his time to on Jump Zero.

They can call him the guy who sleeps with his rulebook, believe he’s too naïve to be a good soldier, accuse him of wearing his heart on his sleeve. He’s heard it all over the years, to the point of exhaustion. But his moral compass isn’t so straight that he doesn’t take great pleasure in occasionally raking those people over the coals with a pair of twos.

Shepard might be a tougher read than most, but Kaidan picks up a tell within two hands. On the fourth hand, everyone gasps when Kaidan is the last one standing with three kings. Shepard had folded on a flush.

“How the _hell_ , LT,” Aslany says with an astonished laugh. Pendergrass’s mouth hangs agape, and Beaudoin looks back and forth between Shepard and Kaidan like he expects a biotic firefight.

But Shepard merely tilts his head slightly, scrutinizing Kaidan with a mix of curiosity and surprise. Despite his best efforts, a smirk curls the edge of Kaidan’s lips.

Shepard’s curiosity turns to amusement.

“One thing to have a better hand,” Beaudoin declares with a hefty shake of his head. “Hell of another thing to _bluff_ the B—Commander Shepard out of a goddamned flush. I, uh. I ain’t got those kind of guts.”

Shepard graciously ignores the near-slip, though his eyes dart quickly to Kaidan. At least now he sees what Kaidan’s been worried about.

“That’s ‘prolly why you’re still a Chief at age a hundred and twelve, Beaudoin,” Pendergrass quips. Aslany snorts.

Beaudoin points at her, but there’s good humor in it. “I’m thirty-three, thanks, and my PT scores are higher than yours _.”_

“Get too overconfident and someone will always knock you on your ass,” Shepard muses.

“Someone should embroider that on a pillow,” Aslany replies, taking another sip of her drink.

Pendergrass taps her chin thoughtfully.

“Whatever,” Beaudoin says with a lazy wave of his hands. “None of y’all’d have the balls to bluff him out. Sir,” he hastily adds with a slightly chagrined glance at Shepard.

“No rank at the poker table,” Shepard replies, flicking a stray card into the pile in the center of the table.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Pendergrass asks Kaidan, with a look that clearly says, _and can you teach it to me_.

Kaidan pulls the cards towards him and starts shuffling the deck. “Same place I learned how to melt brains and make a really good lahmacun.”

“What the hell is…lahwhatever you said?” Pendergrass asks with a wrinkled nose.

“It’s Turkish,” Kaidan replies.

“Better not let Navarro hear you boasting,” Beaudoin advises. “He damn near put me on my ass when I tried to give him pointers on that beef stroganoff of his.”

“You just have that kind of personality,” Aslany replies, picking the cards Kaidan deals her one by one and scrutinizing them carefully. “ _Everyone_ wants to put you on your ass.”

Shepard hides a snicker behind a hand, but Aslany sees it, and actually looks a little exhilarated about making the great Commander Shepard laugh. _Know the feeling, kid,_ Kaidan thinks.

Another three hands and Shepard’s posture is looser than it was when he came in. He doesn’t say much, but each word he utters is deliberate, with an end goal in mind, and it always results in drawing a smile from someone at the table. Every single person looks more relaxed by the end of the night. Even Aslany.

Shepard’s ability to read and adapt himself to the people around him is uncanny. Doesn’t make him any better at bluffing, though.

Kaidan pitches the empty bottle as they clean up, glad they’d put it to good use.

“We gonna do this again sometime?” Beaudoin asks.

Kaidan’s gaze finds Shepard’s, who deposits a few mugs into the dish sanitizer. The commander says nothing, but nods ever so slightly.

“Ah, sure,” Kaidan says. “Next week. Same time?”

“Only if you can spare a few minutes before then to give me a few tips,” Pendergrass says.

Kaidan chuckles. “Okay. If that’s what it takes.”

Pendergrass nods victoriously. “Good. Next week then.”

~

A few days later, a cross-stitch appears tacked to the wall of the mess, with, ‘ _Overconfidence will knock you on your ass’_ embroidered in curly script _,_ accented with a cluster of flowers and a butterfly _._ No one confesses, but Pendergrass has a tell.

~

A soft shiver of static washes across Kaidan’s nerves right at 01:00 the next night. He looks over his shoulder from the stove to find Shepard leaning against the archway separating the galley from the mess, datapad in one hand.

“I’m not surprised very often,” the commander says, idly tracing the cross-stitch with a finger.

Every time Shepard skips dinner, he winds up in the mess after hours. Kaidan spoons some fried rice onto a plate and holds it out.

“Still stewing?”

Shepard pushes off from the wall and comes close enough to take the proffered dish.

“No,” he replies, taking a seat at a table. “Torn between being disappointed in myself and feeling I need to apologize for underestimating you.”

Kaidan dishes up his own plate and joins him. “No need to apologize. Most people assume I’m an easy target.”

Shepard makes a sound deep in his throat. “I like to think I’m not most people.”

“You’re not,” Kaidan says, before he can stop himself. He swallows. It feels like another bluffing game from the poker table the other night, but he’s not sure who wins. Maybe they both do. Or maybe they both lose. Shepard digs his fork into the rice and takes a bite.

“This is good,” he says after some thoughtful chewing. “You’re two for two.”

“Man of many talents,” Kaidan says with a shrug.

“Yes, you are,” Shepard says, in a measured, contemplative tone that speeds Kaidan’s pulse a little. “Thank you for making that happen. You were right. I needed to get a handle on my…reputation. After Torfan—” He stops abruptly, and shakes his head.

Interesting. Shepard crossed his _own_ line, that time.

“When it goes like it did with Wong, it’s…unsettling,” Kaidan offers. “They just needed a secure place to put their feet.”

There’s that shrewd gaze. “Sounds like the voice of experience.”

Kaidan stirs some of the fried rice around on his plate. “Yeah, I guess.”

Shepard waits.

Kaidan inhales deeply through his nose and sits back in his seat. “I learned poker from a kid on Jump Zero. His name was Joran. Good kid. From…Belgium, I think. Back on Earth. His family reacted about the same way mine did to his biotic ‘potential,’ so we had something in common.”

“Remind me to bill him for all the credits you hosed me for tonight,” Shepard says with a wry smile.

Kaidan shifts in his chair. “He and I were playing a few practice hands one night in the cafeteria. We weren’t supposed to be there that late. But Vyrnnus – our instructor – had put us through a special kind of hell that day, and we just didn’t care, you know? Stupid kids, looking for trouble.”

“The instructor,” Shepard interjects. “Is that the one…?”

Kaidan nods. _The one I killed_.

Shepard says nothing, but the gravity well shifts and cants. More toying.

“One of the night wards found us, kicked us out,” Kaidan goes on. “No big deal, except he took the deck of cards, too. It was Joran’s deck, one his grandmother had sent in a care package or something. He didn’t take that too well, but I didn’t really think anything of it. I mean, who would?” He gestures helplessly. “It was a deck of cards.”

Shepard’s expression turns solemn. “What happened?”

“Middle of the night we went into lockdown. I don’t think I would have even known, but I was up early to meet someone for a study session, and I couldn’t open the door to my room. When they let us out no one would say anything, but at dinner time I realized Joran was missing. Found out a few weeks later he’d murdered the night ward who kicked us out of the cafeteria.”

“He _killed_ him?”

Kaidan nods, focused on his plate. “I never saw him again. No idea what happened to him. And that’s just one story. There were more like it.” He forces a smile. “We were all L2s…you never knew who might snap next. I still don’t know if one day it’ll be me.”

“Alenko—”

“It’s fine, Shepard. I’ve lived with it a long time. I just…know how they felt, is all.”

Shepard pushes around the datapad still resting on the table, then slides it across.

“What’s this?” Kaidan asks with a frown.

Shepard steeples his fingers. “Because trust goes both ways.”

Kaidan picks it up. It displays the ship manifest and crew roster of the _MSV Harrington._ Kaidan skims it with a frown. Shepard says nothing.

Registered to the Alliance Geological Service, operated by a civilian crew. Went missing in the Eagle Nebula in 2169, presumed commandeered by batarian slavers after multiple reports of pirate activity in the area.

One name jumps out of him when he gets to the crew roster. His eyes widen.

_Shepard, Daniel (Major, former)_

…Oh.

 _She won’t find anything,_ Shepard had said about the abandoned freighter. _They never do._

Kaidan’s gaze snaps back to Shepard, whose expression doesn’t change.

“Your father was on that ship.”

Shepard nods. The gravity well does a somersault.

“Twenty-one sixty-nine,” Kaidan murmurs. “How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

“So the freighter…wasn’t just another mission for you. That kid—”

“Will never know what happened to his father,” Shepard interrupts. “Best he can hope for is they killed him.”

“Shepard…I’m sorry.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “It was a long time ago.”

“Still.”

Shepard drums his fingers on the table.

“Still,” he echoes. “Seems we’ve both seen a few things.”

Kaidan nods. “Yeah. Maybe so.”

The gravity well flips again as Shepard gets to his feet. “Good night, Lieutenant.”

“Good night, Shepard.”

First few weeks on board, the presence of Shepard’s field had felt intrusive. Uncomfortable. Like an itch under his skin he couldn’t scratch. Now, as Shepard retreats and takes that static hum with him, the silence left in his wake feels far too still.

Kaidan flexes his fingers, rolling dark energy across his palm, gaze lingering long after Shepard disappears from view.


	5. Fall From Your Ladder - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> N5 is a bitch. Kaidan worries. Clay Beaudoin attempts to have a night out. Aslany weaponizes a toothpick. Pendergrass reminisces about her favorite Asshole. There's banter and flirting and intrigue, _oh my_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got much too long, so welcome to Cantata's first two-parter.
> 
> Many, _many_ thanks to [Potionsmaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potionsmaster/pseuds/potionsmaster) for beta-ing and hand-holding me through how picking someone up in a bar works. :D

_Yeah, I can't see where you comin' from_   
_But I know just what you runnin' from_

x

**Fall From Your Ladder, Pt 1**

_01 March 2179, Arcturus Stream, Arcturus System, Arcturus Station_

Kaidan sits on the edge of the medical bed, spine curled, elbow propped on a knee, rubbing his temple with two fingers. Dr. Wendler finishes loading a dermal injector and presses it against the inside of his arm, humming softly.

“Sorry,” she says, stopping herself abruptly. “Habit. I’m sure that’s not helpful.”

“No, it’s fine,” he says, shifting his arm as a familiar chill runs up and down from the injection site. The migraine drug cocktail always feels like someone shot ice water right into his veins. “The dice roll came up light sensitivity this time, not sound.”

“At least it wasn’t both,” she points out.

“There’s that.”

Once upon a time he maintained that kind of positive thinking about the migraines. Sometimes he still musters it up.

“This one seems milder than the last couple,” she observes. “Maybe this regimen is working.”

“Wishful thinking. I get the nice ones sometimes. Usually means the next one’s going to be a three-day shore-leave style bender.”

“And here I was rooting for the medicine doing its job,” the doc says, putting a dramatic hand to her chest.

He manages a small smile for her valiant effort at levity. “Oh, I’m rooting. Just not getting my hopes up.”

“Well in that case, be thankful you only have _two_ days of shore leave.”

Kaidan huffs.

She grins. “Let me do one more scan, then I’ll stop torturing you.”

“Sure.” He runs a hand through his hair as she rummages through a drawer. No matter how small the migraine, the prospect of leaving the ‘ _Yang_ to wander around Arcturus isn’t exactly appealing. When the ship docks, he plans to start off shore leave by enjoying some quiet in the barracks.

His omnitool flashes with an incoming message. When he sees who it’s from, he sits up a little straighter.

 _Shepard_.

It’s been just over ten weeks since they dropped him at Arcturus to catch an Earth transport bound for Rio. He wouldn’t say much about N5 quals before he left, in fact had gone out of his way to downplay his departure. Supposedly the pit stop at Arcturus is to re-acquire him, but as no one’s heard a word from him, Kaidan was beginning to wonder.

He brings up the message.

_Source: Shepard, S., Lieutenant Commander, Arcturus_

_Recipient: Alenko, K., 1st Lieutenant, SSV Myeongnyang_

_Message Begin_

_Need backup. Anderson and Oseguera insisting on taking me to dinner. 19:00 The Parliamentarian. You better show up._

_Message End_

Despite the steady thump in his head, the corner of Kaidan’s mouth turns up in a smile. Had Shepard just _ordered_ him to dinner?

Well, whatever went down in Rio, it still _sounds_ like him, at least.

Five months they’ve been on the _Myeongnyang,_ and Shepard’s now been gone for nearly half that time. Just as they’d started getting the hang of one another, too. Couple of combat drops since that first near-disaster on Mindoir and they’d almost developed a rhythm. Granted, the rhythm usually consisted of Shepard going off-script almost as soon as the shooting started, but now Kaidan _knows_ to keep an eye out for his left flank, because Shepard sure wasn’t going to do it.

Hell, they’d even gotten him to crack a joke at the poker table. Who knew the Butcher of Torfan could be _funny._

“What’s the grin for?” Dr. Wendler asks, coming back with the scanner she’d been after. She aims it at his forehead and runs it slowly over his scalp.

“Nothing,” Kaidan says, clearing his throat a little. “Heard from Shepard. He’s still alive. Was starting to wonder.”

The doc makes a curious sound in her throat. “And here I was getting so used to just treating migraines and muscle strains.”

“Maybe The Villa tempered him a little,” Kaidan offers.

She snorts. “Now who’s doing the wishful thinking? You’re good to go, by the way. Until next time. Care to take bets on whether it’s a bullet or a migraine?”

Kaidan gets slowly to his feet. “Think Beaudoin’s your guy for a bet. Heard him and Aslany making wagers on how many peanuts Pendergrass can shove in her mouth. Honestly, we might all be better off just giving them something to shoot.”

“Okay. Twenty credits says it’s a bullet.”

“You know what? I’ll take that bet.”

“Excellent. You’re all set. Enjoy your shore leave.”

Kaidan tips her a two-finger salute and heads for the medbay door. Instead of a quiet, dark room he’s got a shower and fresh uniform in his future. Not even back on the ship yet, and Shepard’s already derailing Kaidan’s plans.

He stifles a smile on his way to the crew deck.

~

The _Myeongnyang’s_ airlock opens to the whir and clatter of the Arcturus docking hub. Pendergrass nearly bowls Kaidan over as she bounds out ahead of him, which doesn’t exactly help his ailing head. Beaudoin clucks his tongue and shakes his head.

“Whoa, wagon,” he calls after her. “We’ve got two days. What’s your hurry?”

She spins around with a shrug that Kaidan doesn’t trust at all. “Stuff.”

“Any ‘stuff’ in particular?” Kaidan prods, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

Her eyes narrow. “Uh. Shopping?” She grabs Aslany’s arm. “You should come with me.”

Aslany yanks her arm away. “ _Shopping?_ You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Pendergrass darts a nervous glance at Kaidan before whispering something in Aslany’s ear. The private’s eyebrow raises. “Oh. Ok. Sure.”

“If you get arrested, I’m not pulling you out of the brig,” Kaidan informs them.

“That’s fine, Beaudoin will!”

Pendergrass takes off before Beaudoin can argue. Aslany follows with equal haste.

Beaudoin sighs. “Should I follow them?”

Kaidan grins. “It’s shore leave. Any bad decisions are on them.”

“Good. Because there’s a new nightclub up in the ring and you can fish me out when it’s time to raise anchor. What’re you gonna do?”

“Dinner with the Captain and Shepard, apparently,” Kaidan says, rubbing his forehead.

“Big kid table,” Beaudoin says with an appreciative nod. “Should I give kudos or condolences?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Beaudoin flashes a grin. “Catch you later, LT.”

~

Kaidan finds The Parliament in a section of the torus ring that most in the Alliance nickname the Brass Ring. Kaidan glances down at his BDUs wondering if he’s made a huge mistake not throwing on dress blues. Well, too late now. At least the place is dimly lit.

The host at the entrance to the restaurant, a civilian dressed in a suit that seems as overkill as Kaidan’s fatigues are underkill, eyes him coolly when he approaches.

“Reservation?”

“Sort of,” Kaidan says, jamming his hands in his pockets. “I’m meeting someone.”

“Name?”

“Uh, Shepard. Or could be Oseguera. Or… ” he racks his brain for the third name Shepard had mentioned. A-something. Adams? Abramson? “Anderson,” he supplies.

The host sighs, almost with disappointment, and leads him towards the back.

This place is crawling with high brass. Captains, colonels, even a few admiral bars. Kaidan is easily the lowest ranked officer present. Yeah, dress blues would have been the right call, all right.

A familiar wash of static passes through him, standing up the hairs on his arms. He turns his head left, where Shepard – also wearing BDUs, to Kaidan’s relief – sits at a table with Captain Oseguera and another officer Kaidan doesn’t recognize. Shepard looks up at the same moment and meets his gaze, dour expression softening into something that could almost be mistaken for a smile.

But the almost-smile looks different on him, like it doesn’t fit right. Kaidan’s brow tightens. The dim light of the restaurant covers it up, but Shepard’s lost weight. A _lot_ of weight.

The mystery officer, Anderson presumably, raises an eyebrow at the sight of him. Oseguera twists in her seat to see what the fuss is about, and smiles broadly before springing to her feet to welcome him. “Lieutenant! Join us. Look who we found. Captain Anderson, have you met Lieutenant Alenko?”

Anderson gets to his feet, gaze darting to Shepard, whose opaque expression gives nothing away. Anderson is tall, broad, built like a wall, with a voice that nearly triggers a salute.

“Ah, yes. The marine detail. Pleasure to meet you.” He extends a hand, which Kaidan takes. Anderson’s grip is firm, steady, like iron. Kaidan catches a glimpse of an N7 pin on his collar, and his eyes widen as the pieces fall together.

“Captain…Anderson? _David_ Anderson?”

Anderson’s veneer cracks easier than Shepard’s does, and he’s quicker to smile, too. “Yes, last I checked.”

 _The_ David Anderson. First N7. List of commendations longer than Kaidan’s arm. The guy’s a legend.

“Sir, this is an honor.” Kaidan gives his hand an extra shake before letting go, then _does_ salute. Shepard watches him with a bemused look.

“At ease, Lieutenant. Will you be joining us?” the Captain asks.

Kaidan glances at Shepard. “Only if I’m not—”

“I asked him to come,” Shepard interrupts. He gestures to the empty chair across from him, next to Captain Oseguera.

“I’ll have them bring another place setting,” Anderson says, raising a hand to flag down a waiter as Kaidan takes a seat.

“Not necessary.” Shepard picks up a menu and stares at it. “Won’t need it.”

Anderson gazes at him, the lines of his forehead creasing. Shepard clears his throat.

“I hear they do a good steak here.”

Anderson exhales through his nose before giving in and picking up his own menu. Whatever the unspoken argument between them, Kaidan would bet money it’s one they’ve had a thousand times before.

“So am I correct we are, in fact, celebrating?” Kaidan asks.

Captain Oseguera chuckles at Shepard. “Did you not even tell him?”

“He’s good with context clues,” Shepard replies, corner of his lip quirking upward. He takes a sip of water from the cup at his elbow. The glass is half empty, even though they couldn’t have been sitting long.

When everyone at the table continues to look at him, Shepard gestures with an exasperated arm. “Yes. I made N5. I think I even saw the invite for N6 somewhere in my inbox. But it might be a hallucination. I just got off a shuttle two hours ago, the nap I took on the way here is about the only real sleep I’ve had in weeks, and I don’t actually have any idea what time it is.”

“You ready for a full meal like this?” Anderson asks, concern etched into his brow. A lot more concern than Kaidan would have expected.

“It’s fine,” Shepard assures him. “I’ve had a whole forty-eight hours now to remember how to digest something other than my own stomach lining.”

But it isn’t fine. Kaidan shifts in his seat. Shepard has to be at least ten kilos lighter than he was when he left, and he didn’t exactly have much to spare in the first place. His face is thin, haggard, too pale. The circles under his eyes look more like bruises.

“Congrats, Commander,” Kaidan says. Shepard’s eyes flick to him as he toys with the corner of his napkin. There’s a tremor in his hand. He shoves it back under the table.

“Just looking forward to an actual bed again.”

The gravity well shifts as Shepard idly taps into it, and Kaidan puts a hand to his face to stifle a smile. He’d actually…missed those casual intrusions into the gravity well. Shepard raises an eyebrow, but Kaidan merely shakes his head.

They place their order. Shepard’s right, steak features prominently on the menu. Kaidan rubs his forehead. The thump in his head is gentler now, but still steady. Being out and about sure isn’t going to speed along its conclusion, but he’s hungry at least, which is a good sign. Seems the latest round of meds _are_ helping. Doc Wendler will be thrilled.

It quickly becomes clear Kaidan is the only person at the table who doesn’t know Captain Anderson on a first name basis. He and Oseguera clearly have some sort of history, enough that she brings up shared colleagues, and he asks her about her kids. Kaidan learns she has two grown daughters, both still on Earth.

But the truly fascinating thing to watch is _Shepard_ and Anderson. It takes him a minute to warm up, but as they wait for the food, Shepard smiles. _Laughs._ It’s not strategic or measured or guarded. It’s _real_. He looks at Anderson not with the cool detachment he wears on the ‘ _Yang,_ but genuine admiration.

“So as the two resident _non-_ Ns at the table,” Oseguera asks, nodding at Kaidan for solidarity, “what do they do to you for N5?”

Shepard and Anderson exchange glances. Shepard clears his throat.

“SERE.”

“Ah,” Oseguera says. “I suppose at this level they certainly aren’t pulling any punches.”

“No,” Shepard agrees.

 _SERE._ Survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. No _wonder_ Shepard looks like hell. The Alliance doesn’t exactly advertise their training methods, but they’re generally understood to be brutal. Nothing meant to prepare you for survival on alien worlds or being interrogated by batarians could be anything less. Whatever those methods might be, Kaidan can’t imagine a good meal was involved.

“That must be hell as a biotic,” Kaidan says, before he can stop himself.

Shepard shrugs. “Not particularly enjoyable, no.”

“At least you’ve learned a thing or two since ICT,” Anderson says, then turns to Kaidan with the grin of a parent bragging about his kid. “Shepard’s the first biotic to try the N program.”

“At this point I think I’m past _try,_ at least,” Shepard grumbles. “Five levels in I think we can say I’ve achieved _something._ ”

Anderson pats him on the back and grins. “Come back and talk to me when you’ve got this.” He points to the N7 emblem on his collar.

Shepard grunts, but his expression remains soft. Affectionate, even.

Their food arrives moments later. Kaidan smells it before it gets to the table, and his stomach rumbles. The strip steak is probably grown from a vat rather than a cow, but the mashed potatoes are _real_ , not the reconstituted flakes from the ship. Heaven.

The conversation slows as they start to eat, but when Kaidan glances up a few bites in, Shepard has yet to touch his plate. One hand grips a fork too tightly, the other remains hidden under the table. He’s even paler than he was a few moments ago, a glisten of sweat standing out on his brow.

What Kaidan wouldn’t give for a hardsuit HUD and Shepard’s biofeeds. After weeks of calorie deprivation, Shepard’s glucose levels must be all over the place. How the _hell_ did he get through SERE on what was undoubtedly a massive deficit?

Kaidan flags down a waiter. “Do you have any juice? Orange, apple, anything like that?”

“Orange,” the waiter says with a puzzled look. “Shall I bring you some?”

“Please.”

Shepard eyes him but says nothing. When the glass arrives, Kaidan pushes it across the table without comment. Shepard still hasn’t touched his food, and does his best to avoid looking at the other plates. But he does drain the orange juice without argument.

A few minutes later Anderson begins regaling them with stories from the N program, most of which Shepard has clearly heard before, because he interrupts to correct them, much to Anderson’s chagrin.

“Would you rather tell my story for me?” Anderson asks with a gesture.

“Wouldn’t have to if you could remember how to tell it,” Shepard says with a smirk. He pushes his fork around on his plate.

Anderson’s gaze softens. “You’ve got a few good stories of your own, now. Lot more to come, too.”

“Looking forward to it, sir.”

Oseguera clears her throat. “I suppose this is where I broach the topic of your next assignment, Commander. I assume your new designation is a double-edged sword for me.”

Kaidan straightens a little in his seat. Is Shepard being reassigned? It should have occurred to him that after passing N5 quals Shepard might not come _back_ to the _Myeongnyang._

But it hadn’t.

Anderson gives Shepard a long look. In response, Shepard stabs at an asparagus spear.

“From the sounds of it, the ‘ _Yang_ is a good home for you,” Anderson says. “The consensus is to keep your gear parked where it is.” He looks back at Oseguera. “But I know for a fact there’s a few mission objectives coming up they’re going to want him for. If you’re willing to share.”

Oseguera smiles with amusement. “Is the Alliance giving me an opinion, now?”

“No,” Anderson admits with a grin. Oseguera chuckles.

“If keeping him around means he’s on call, I think Alenko and I can make do. He’s run the ground team extremely well in Shepard’s absence.”

Kaidan flushes a little. Especially when Shepard nods with satisfaction.

“Shepard tells me you’re quite the soldier,” Anderson says.

“I…do my best, sir,” he says, trying to digest the fact his name had come up in conversation with one the Alliance’s most decorated soldiers.

“Three combat drops now, and Alenko hasn’t let me die once,” Shepard confirms.

“No help from you,” Kaidan shoots back.

“That sounds about right,” Anderson mutters under his breath. Shepard chuckles.

By the time the meal finishes, Shepard looks a little steadier and the tremor in his hands is almost gone, though he takes most of his food to go. Captain Oseguera bids them farewell when they head out.

She puts a hand on Shepard’s shoulder. “I’ll see _you_ on board. We’ll debrief upon departure. Until then? Enjoy some well-earned rest.”

“Yes ma’am,” Shepard agrees.

Captain Anderson shakes Kaidan’s hand again.

“Thank you for dinner, sir,” Kaidan says. He’d tried to throw some credits towards the bill, but Anderson wouldn’t have it. “It was an honor.”

“Least I could do. You’re stuck with _him_.” He indicates Shepard, who gives him a withering look.

“Right. Thanks.”

Anderson grins, then to Kaidan’s surprise, wraps Shepard up in a fierce hug. To his even greater surprise, Shepard returns it just as tightly. When they part, Anderson puts a palm to Shepard’s cheek.

“I’m proud of you, Sam.”

“Thank you, sir,” Shepard replies, voice rough.

Kaidan averts his eyes, positive what he just saw wasn’t meant for him. When Anderson heads off in another direction, Shepard turns his head to Kaidan and rocks back and forth on his heels.

“Got a night on the town planned?” he asks.

“No. Headed back to the ship.”

“Good. Because I don’t actually know where she’s parked and I am _way_ too tired to figure it out.”

Kaidan huffs. “Happy to escort you, sir.”

“I will _not_ find it amusing if you decide to escort me to shipping and receiving just because I’m exhausted enough not to notice the difference between a shipping crate and my rack, by the way.”

“You wound me,” Kaidan says, grabbing his arm as he tries to walk off in the wrong direction. “I would never. Besides, I’m escorting you straight to Dr. Wendler.”

“What for?”

“You’re dangerously hypoglycemic.”

Shepard raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, and you have a migraine.”

Kaidan nearly comes to a stop. “How did you know?”

“There’s a thing you do with your face.”

“My face,” Kaidan says skeptically.

“Yeah, Lieutenant ‘I Fuck Everyone Sideways at the Poker Table’ Alenko, your face has a tell.” He softens a little. “You didn’t have to show if you had a migraine. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“You made N5. Think it was a pretty big deal. I’m actually…flattered you asked me to come.”

Shepard’s gaze slides towards him, that hint of amusement playing at the corner of his eyes. “Given all you have to put up with to deal with me, figured a free meal was the least I could do.”

Kaidan huffs. “ _Deal_ with you. You’re a hell of a soldier, Commander. It’s a privilege.”

The eyebrow raises again. “Uh huh.”

Kaidan tilts his head as they reach an elevator. He hits the call button. “Ok, it would be nice if you’d _listen_ to me every now and then when I point out a target or, you know, give a shit about your left flank just _once_.”

“There it is.”

“ _Once,_ Shepard. Once is all I’m asking.”

“Get on the damned elevator, Alenko.”

Kaidan chuckles and steps through the open door. Shepard joins him and leans against the wall, closing his eyes with a sigh as the elevator descends.

“Hate to ask,” Kaidan ventures, “but you don’t have a rucksack. Do we need to track it down?”

He cracks a half smile without opening his eyes. “No. Someone mercifully said they’d handle it, and I trust whoever that person was. If they were a person. It could be a voice in my head. Guess we’ll find out.”

“You look like hell.”

“Thanks. I can’t feel my feet. I’m sure that’ll go away, right?”

“Definitely taking you to Dr. Wendler,” Kaidan mutters.

One eye opens just a little. “You sound like Anderson. If you want his autograph I can probably get it for you, you know.”

Kaidan socks him in the arm, and Shepard snorts. “You could have given me a heads up I was having dinner with one of the Alliance’s most decorated soldiers.”

“Wanted to see your face. Worth it. _Actual_ stars in your eyes.”

“You’re the worst.”

Shepard huffs. Kaidan looks down at his feet and then back up at Shepard, question gnawing at him. He’s gotten a lot better at working with Shepard in the field, but the constant tap dance around what he will or won’t talk about leaves a lot to be desired. He takes a chance.

“Seems like you’ve known Anderson a long time.”

Shepard grunts, shifting against the elevator wall. “You could say that. He knew my dad. Gave a damn when he didn’t have to.”

Kaidan opens his mouth to ask about it further, but the elevator doors open, depositing them back on the docking ring.

“What ship are we on, again?” Shepard asks as he walks out.

Kaidan rolls his eyes and points. “That way.”

Shepard dutifully walks in the suggested direction.

“So,” Kaidan asks. “Is it good to be home?”

“If by ‘home’ you mean ‘space,’ sure, I guess.”

“Space, Arcturus. Whatever. What _is_ home for you, Shepard?”

Shepard shrugs a moody shoulder. “Never really thought of home as a place, I guess. Moved around too much to ever really get attached. Even on Arcturus we shifted quarters around more than you’d expect.”

Kaidan tilts his chin, contemplative. Home as something other than a _place_ has never occurred to him. At first it was weird to think of a ship as home, but he’s been in the service long enough at this point that it’s happened. He’s already slipped a few times and called the ‘ _Yang_ home. In some ways, maybe it is. But in the grand scheme of things, home is and probably always will be Earth. Vancouver. Even if he hasn’t seen it in years now, and isn’t anxious to see it again any time soon.

“So, if home isn’t a place…what is it?”

Kaidan half expects him not to answer.

“People,” Shepard says at last.

“People?”

“You sound skeptical.”

“Uh, forgive me for saying so, but you don’t exactly seem all that fond of…people.”

That hint of a smile comes back, reflected in the glass of the observation window. “I’m not always the Butcher of Torfan, you know.”

“Yeah, the Butcher of Torfan wouldn’t get lost on his way back to his own ship.”

“ _Now_ who’s the worst.”

Kaidan chuckles and follows him into the airlock. When Shepard hesitates while entering the access code, Kaidan does it for him. Withering look number two.

 _People._ What kind of person would the aloof Lieutenant Commander Shepard think highly enough of to call home?

 _Anderson_.

Shepard’s never acted that _familiar_ around anyone. Kaidan shifts his weight, wondering again whose place setting he’d sat in at dinner. But given how quick Shepard had dismissed the Captain about it, he knows better than to ask.

They’ve hardly gotten through the airlock when Shepard’s omnitool shimmers with an incoming message. The flash catches Kaidan right in the eye, and he winces. Yup. Not fully out of the woods, yet. Some shore leave.

Shepard glares down at the haptic interface to check the message, and mutters something under his breath.

“What is it?” Kaidan asks.

“Business,” Shepard mutters, expression a thundercloud as he turns right back towards the airlock. “Have to go see someone.”

“ _Now?_ You’re exhausted.”

“Trust me, it won’t take long.”

Shepard’s hand hesitates over the panel controlling the airlock cycle.

“Alenko?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for coming tonight.”

The corner of Kaidan’s mouth crooks in a smile. “Any time, Commander. Good to have you back.”

~

Whatever this music is, it’s got a good beat. The Cosmic String doesn’t have quite the flavor of some of the places back home, but the bass pounds hard enough that Clay Beaudoin feels it in his chest, and there are plenty of people on the dance floor looking for the same thing he is.

A little carefree company, and a chance to do more with his hips than just dance.

The brunette brushing up against him has good rhythm, the kind of arms that could pin him down anywhere she wants and a smirk that suggests she wouldn’t hesitate to do it. Likewise, he’s caught the attention of a blonde who looks like he’d be more comfortable in a lab coat than a suit of combat armor, which suits Clay just fine, aside from the fact he looks a little too young and eager.

He’s not in the mood to mentor tonight. Tonight he just wants to feel.

Hard to do that on the _‘Yang_ sometimes. Especially with this crew. It’s been a little easier to relax every now and then with the LC offloaded; since Shepard’s been out people have stopped watching the doors and corridors with a salute ready to go in their pocket should he happen to walk by. But that still leaves Aslany’s lit fuse, Pendergrass’s worrisome attachment to explosives, and Alenko’s killer poker face.

They’re a good bunch, really. Young. Even Shepard, though it’s admittedly hard to remember sometimes the Butcher of Torfan is only twenty-five. It usually only shows at the poker table. The constant drumming of his fingers against the tabletop, leg that won’t stop bouncing…when he’s relaxed, Shepard is the kid who can’t sit still. If only he actually knew how to relax.

Clay knows how to relax. Which is exactly why he wants a night for himself, and the person sitting at the bar making eyes at him over a tequila sunrise is going to be the one to give it to him.

He hopes, anyway.

The corner of their mouth curves in a playful smirk when they catch Clay making eyes right back, and take another sip of the drink. Long, lithe body, the kind of graceful neck begging to be nibbled on, a secretive smile that plays over sensuously full lips.

Yeah. They look good. They’ll look even better sweaty and panting underneath him.

He weaves his way through the undulating crowd. A burly dude – marine by the build, with shoulders as broad as a barn and a little too much liquor on his breath – grabs Clay’s ass as he passes through, but Clay pushes his hand away with a cluck of his tongue and a wag of his finger.

The press of bodies moving to a reckless beat is a good high, but the one sitting at the bar will be a better one if all goes well. He slides up next to them, leaning his elbows on the bar and orders a paloma.

“Hey there.”

“Hey yourself, stranger,” they reply with a knowing smirk.

His eyes wander the exquisite line of their arm, all the way to the fingertips tracing the jut of their collar bone. A pleasant roll of heat stirs in his groin.

Their eyebrows raise in amusement. “See something you like?”

“I noticed you have good taste,” he says, tearing his gaze from their teasing touch to nod at the half-empty glass. “Buy you a drink?”

Their smirk grows into a grin as they tip their head to the side and turn to face him fully, sliding their leg to press against his. He drops his arm next to theirs on the bar, lightly tracing his own fingertips through the soft down on their warm skin.

“Sure thing, sailor.” The barstool shifts with their weight as they lean towards him, eyes warm and dark as they lock on his. “What bird brought you in?”

“ _Myeongnyang,”_ he replies. He’s got a smile of his own that tends to be a crowd pleaser, and judging by the way their eyes dart right to his mouth when he offers it, he’s pretty sure it’s not letting him down tonight. “You a regular?”

They nod and take another slow, deliberate sip of their drink. The bartender returns with the paloma, and Clay signals for another tequila sunrise.

“I’m Clay.”

“Quinn.”

“Do you like to dance, Quinn?”

“I do,” they say with a demure nod.

His smile broadens. “Would you care to join me?”

“I would.”

He takes them by the hand and leads them away from the bar, eyes set on the dancefloor– the drinks can wait. The bass throbs in his ears and in his chest, Quinn’s hand warm in his. They move as gracefully as Clay imagined they would.

Clay likes a good conversation, but this is his favorite way to talk when a nice chat isn’t his endgame. He lets the music move his body, close but not encroaching on Quinn, spark of heat coiling at the base of his spine when they choose to get in his space.

Quinn offers a coy smirk before turning around and placing Clay’s hand on their hip.

Bodies do so much talking, if you’ve got the patience to listen to what they have to say. Quinn’s has a _lot_ to say, and all of it good.

His fingertips trail the curve of their hip. They arch their back and tilt their head, pressing back and _sliding_ along him, cupping their hand over his where it rests on their hip to discourage any thoughts of letting go. The tempo slows, shifting to a heavier bass, and their bodies respond in kind.

He clears his throat and creates a little space between them, not wanting to appear too eager, but Quinn rolls themselves back against him, snaking their other hand behind them to grab his belt loop and pull him close.

 _Oh_ yes...if the way they moved was any indication of the way things might go later in the evening _off_ the dance floor…just what the doctor ordered for some good R&R.

Quinn tips their head to the side and brushes their lips against his neck before finding their way up to his cheek. He leans into it, grin spreading as he tries to think of a clever line – harder to do with the blood flowing _away_ from where he needs it for clever thinking – when a familiar face appears in his periphery, waving eagerly.

Clay stops short, Quinn’s lip twisting at his sudden lack of response. What the hell is _Pendergrass_ doing here?

She bounds over to him, grin on her face the size of a dreadnaught. Aslany looms behind her like a thundercloud, scowling at anyone whose gaze drifts in her direction.

“ _There_ you are,” Pendergrass announces.

Quinn quietly withdraws their hand, and Clay resists the urge to throttle the eager corporal. “Yes, here I am. Why are _you_ here?”

“Wanted to show you something.”

Clay runs a hand through his hair, glancing over his shoulder at Quinn and flashing a look of apology. “I’m a little busy, can it wait?”

Pendergrass looks blankly at Clay, then at Quinn, before the light bulb goes off. “Oh _shit._ You’re tryna’ get _laid.”_

Clay sighs. Quinn folds their arms across their chest, glancing at the moving bodies out on the dance floor.

“Kara. This is shore leave. Unless someone is under fire, I’ll see you on the ship in about thirty-six hours.”

It’s almost like turning down a puppy who brings you a ball. Her shoulders slump, smile deflating, but she nods vigorously and drags Aslany over to the bar. Presumably to park and wait. Great.

He turns back to Quinn, who raises a perfectly arched and now slightly skeptical eyebrow.

“She means well,” Clay explains, flashing a grin in hopes it rekindles the mood. “ _I_ mean even better.”

A glimmer of their smirk returns, so he sidles closer, palm brushing their hip. The music shifts again, tempo picking up. Perfect.

Out of the corner of his eye, the ass-grabbing marine takes the open barstool next to Aslany, who glares at him before glaring into her drink. A cocktail, to his surprise, complete with an umbrella. Clay pauses mid-move, turning his head to get a better look, and Quinn steps on his toe. Clay grits his teeth but tries to regain his rhythm.

But now he can’t take eyes off Aslany.

Not because she can’t handle herself. If anything, she handles herself _too_ well. Sometimes Aslany throws a punch just to throw a punch, but other times he’s pretty sure she does it because her brain simply won’t let her do anything else.

He slides to a corner of the dance floor that gives him a better view of the bar, bringing Quinn with him. It’s a lot less deft of a move than he’d like, and the shift in Quinn’s body language suggests they think so, too.

_Damnit._

With some luck, this guy is only into men. Or literally anyone in the entire place who’s _not_ Aslany.

Clay’s not that lucky.

The drunk jarhead tries to start a conversation. Aslany turns deliberately away and directs all her attention to Pendergrass, who’s as oblivious to the marine’s unwanted advances as she is to just about everything else when it comes to human behavior. And of course Aslany won’t say something, or suggest they move, because she’s _Aslany,_ and Aslany doesn’t solve problems the easy way.

Please, _please_ do not let this asshole be stupid enough to put an unwanted hand on Aslany.

Oh hell, he’s that stupid.

One hand disappears under the bar. Everything about Aslany tightens, expression freezing. Clay is already moving off the dance floor, Quinn completely forgotten, by the time the marine bellows.

When Clay reaches them, the marine is pulling the stick of the paper umbrella out from where Aslany jammed it into the meat of his thigh. The contents of the drink dribble off the bar and into his lap, with the empty glass clutched in Aslany’s raised hand.

“Excuse me, sir,” Clays says, plucking the glass from her hand as he slides between them, raising his voice enough to be heard over the pounding bass. “Think it’s time for you to call it a night.”

He signals to the bartender to settle up the tab while offering the marine some napkins. He can almost _feel_ the anger radiating off Aslany behind him, but this is triage, and right now his priority is avoiding a brawl that will land all of them in the brig.

“This bitch _stabbed_ me,” the guy roars.

So. Not the type to go down quietly. And with this much alcohol on his breath he’s practically flammable. Not exactly the right combination to listen to reason. Clay fights the urge to follow Aslany’s playbook and deck him, and instead puts a calm, even friendly hand on his shoulder, still keeping his back to Aslany and Pendergrass.

“You had it coming, but you seem like you’re a good guy who probably had a tough day and just wanted a good time, huh?”

“You’re _damn right_ , what the _fuck?”_

Clay makes a sympathetic noise. “I been there, buddy. Tough roll. What’s your name? I’ll buy you another round.”

“You _sonofabitch,_ ” Aslany mutters behind him. Clay waves an insistent hand behind him without turning around to look at her. “Corporal, mind showing our mutual friend back to the ship? I’ll be there in a bit.”

 _Please don’t say her name, Kara_. The last thing he wants is this piece of work to have a lead on how to find Aslany once he sobers up. Or worse, before he sobers up. To his relief, Pendergrass tugs on Aslany’s arm. When she enters Clay’s periphery her eyes are wide, flitting back and forth between Clay and the marine, who’s probably got at least a fifty-pound advantage.

“Go on. My new friend here and I are gonna sort this out. I’ll take care of your drinks.”

Aslany curses at him under her breath as they head for the exit, but Clay ignores her. He’ll sort it out later.

“What’s your name?” he repeats as the guy mops up what he can of the cocktail in his lap. It smells like there was orange in it.

“Pratt,” the guy mutters. “Can you believe that bitch? Just fuckin’ _stabbed_ me with a goddamned toothpick for no fuckin’ reason.”

“Funny what can happen when you put your hands on a total stranger without consent, huh.”

“No shit.”

“Here on shore leave?” Clay opens his omnitool when the bartender presents the tab. He’ll gripe about how many credits he just lost later.

“Yeah.”

“Same here. What ship?”

“The fuckin’ _Lima_. What a fuckin’ night this turned out to be.”

 _No shit,_ Clay thinks to himself. Once the tab is paid, he starts running a personnel search on the _Lima,_ and quickly finds a match with the last name Pratt. The harassment report is filed before he gets up from the bar, and he gets a corroborating story from the bartender after a quick, quiet aside. If Pratt thinks his night went poorly, his tomorrow morning isn’t going to be much better.

He looks with mild hope back towards the dance floor, but Quinn is long gone, and his heart isn’t in it anymore, anyway. Nothing for it but to head back to the ‘ _Yang_ and deal with Aslany.

Maybe next time.

~

If the night wasn’t going off the rails enough, Clay nearly runs into Shepard rounding the corner to the _‘Yang’s_ airlock. He’s deep in heated conversation with a woman who, despite being several centimeters shorter, somehow still seems taller.

“Sir,” Clay stammers, as they both turn to look at him. It’s like seeing double, except she has shoulder-length silver hair instead of Shepard’s shaved head. Same cheekbones, same icy-cold stare, same posture. Aside from the gender difference, about the only way to tell them apart are the captain’s bars she wears on her uniform.

Also, she doesn’t look like shit, and Shepard… _does_. Christ on crutches what the hell did they _do_ to him in Rio?

“Chief,” Shepard says, as if Clay was a deckhand he’d never laid eyes on before. The captain does not address him at all.

“Good to have you back,” Clay says, as anxious to get away from them as they appear to want to get away from each other. “I’ll see you on board.”

He hurries on, taking one quick glance over his shoulder before he reaches the airlock.

When he boards the ship he goes straight to the crew deck, where Aslany paces the mess while Pendergrass desperately tries to distract her. Unfortunately, Aslany isn’t the kind of person you can distract or diffuse. You just have to provide a safe place for the explosion.

“What the fuck, Beaudoin,” she demands, hand planted on her hips, eyes flashing when he takes a deep breath and makes his presence known.

“‘Hello, good evening, sorry for killing your night,’ is what you probably want to lead with,” he informs her, leaning casually against a bulkhead.

“For fucking _befriending_ the motherfucker tryin’ to stick his hand up my goddamned crotch?”

Clay sighs, opens his omnitool and sends her the report with a sharp flick of his finger. She looks down at her wrist when her own tool flashes, scowling at him before opening it. As she reads, her expression shifts from livid to merely dour.

“You reported him. So what.”

“Alliance takes that shit seriously. A lot more seriously than the two of you winding up bloody and busted in the brig. Sometimes there’s a better solution than a fistfight.”

The glare returns, but there’s a hint of remorse hiding behind it. Clay softens a little.

“You’re my squad, Muriel. You think I’d ever take the side of some asshole over you? Or Kara?”

She shuffles her feet.

“My job is to protect you, whether we’re on the field or off it. I’ve got your back. Every time.”

“Thanks,” she mumbles. Her brow furrows, like the admission hurts her, and she pushes past him towards the barracks.

You know, believe it or not, he’ll take that as progress.

Pendergrass looks up at him from where she sits at a table with those wide eyes. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” he asks, taking a seat across from her.

“You did the thing with people that Shepard does with bullets. Played chess with ‘em until you won.”

Clay chuckles. “You know grenades, I know people.”

“Fair enough.” She flicks at a crumb on the table. “Sorry we fucked up your good time.”

“Kara.”

She glances up at him. He leans forward a little, and looks her right in the eye. “Squad’s family. Family comes first. If you ever need help, you ask, and you’ll get it.”

“Squad’s family,” she repeats. “You really think so?”

“Yes.”

She nods, head tilted, pondering, but not quite convinced.

“Squad’s not something you earn,” Clay tells her. “It’s something that _is_. Hell, we put our lives in each other’s hands. I don’t set that aside just because I’m off duty. Even when it means walking away from what was probably going to be an _incredible_ evening with a gorgeous human being.”

She grins. “They were fuckin’ hot, Beaudoin.”

He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I _know_.”

She reaches for a box sitting near her feet, digs out a wrapped candy and slides across the table to him.

“What’s this?”

“Salarian candy.”

He frowns and turns it over in his hands. It’s small, and squishes between his fingers, like taffy. “Where the hell did you get it?”

“Spent six months on Sur’Kesh embedded with an electronic countermeasures team before they assigned me here. One of my old squad, Telib, left a care package for me when he was on the Citadel a couple weeks ago. Talked a buddy I went to the academy with into picking it up and getting it to Arcturus.” She nods at the candy. “Always made me feel better.”

“Sur’Kesh make you homesick?”

“Nah,” she says with a shake of her head. “Nothing to be homesick _for._ On Earth I was street trash no one gave a shit about, unless I could steal something for ‘em.”

“Then what did you need to feel better about?”

“Leaving Sur’Kesh,” she says with a crooked smile. “Didn’t want to come back. First place I actually felt like I belonged somewhere.”

He runs a finger over the wrapper, then peels it back. The candy is white, spongey, and he can’t place the scent. He touches it to his tongue, eyebrow raising at the powerful flavor.

“Pretty great, huh?”

“Yeah,” he admits, and flashes her a smile. Different one than what he’d given Quinn, but meaningful all the same. “So what else was in your care package?”

“More candy, some MREs, a few, ah, _parts_ I can’t get through Alliance requisitions…”

He’s not going to ask about the parts. Better that way. But.

“You had someone bring you _MREs_ from an alien military?”

She bobs her head enthusiastically. “They’re _good._ The Alliance should fucking take a lesson or two from the Salarian Union on how to feed soldiers. Crazy efficient with nutrition and it doesn’t taste like glue. Only problem is they’re geared for salarian diets, so they give you the shits.”

Clay snorts. “Small price to pay, I guess.”

“Yeah, if you take ‘em out in the field, I recommend packing wipes.”

“Noted. So what else do you miss?”

“About what, Sur’Kesh?”

“Sure.”

Her face lights up. “I had a drone named Asshole. Telib taught me to make ‘er, but I couldn’t bring her with me when I left.” She taps her temple. “But I remember the specs. Now that I have the missing parts I can reincarnate her.”

She talks his ear off for an hour. The hand job he gives himself later is a far cry from where he thought his evening was going to end up, but everyone got through the evening intact.

All in all, not a bad night.

~

_03 March 2179, Interstellar Space, SSV Myeongnyang_

The ship gets back underway a day later, with Shepard back on board, though Clay doesn’t actually see him again until dinner that night. Funny how just the rumor of the LC being back is enough for everyone to start spot checking doorways and corridors once again.

Not that he’s up for much barking. Shepard looks like _shit._ He’d gone to Rio a tank and come back a wraith. His uniform hangs on him, he walks like it hurts, and his dark circles have dark circles.

Lieutenant Commander Shepard is one of the few nuts Clay can’t seem to crack. Everyone else on the ship is easy enough to figure out, but Shepard? More often than not, Clay’s got no idea what’s going on between those ears. It’s unsettling as hell.

“What the fuck did they do to you?” Pendergrass asks as she flops down next to him at the table. She sets her tray down hard enough a glob of mashed potatoes flies off and lands in the center of the table.

“Training,” Shepard replies, poking at his tray.

The fact he’s joined them for a meal at all speaks to how hungry the guy must be. Shepard almost never shows up in the mess at mealtimes. But here he is, sitting across from Clay and Alenko with a full plate. Alenko, a true medic if there ever was one, keeps flicking his eyes back and forth between Shepard and his own tray, like he expects the LC to pass out at any moment.

Shepard himself can’t seem to focus on anything. His eyes wander the room, unable to settle, except on the rogue glob of mashed potatoes clinging to the tabletop.

Aslany is the last one to join them. She hasn’t said much since the incident in the club, but she and Clay both got contacted by JAG this morning to give a more detailed report, with the update that Pratt was being investigated for multiple incidents and looking at some hefty disciplinary action. One of the few times he’s seen Aslany smile.

“So what do they do to train you that makes you come back looking like the walking dead?” Pendergrass persists.

“Thanks, missed you, too,” Shepard replies, stabbing at his plate again.

She waits expectantly. Once Shepard realizes everyone else at the table is too, he puts his fork down. Clay shifts in his seat. Nothing about the N program sounds the slightest bit appealing, but after seeing Shepard in action…hell, anyone would be curious.

“Survival training,” he explains. “They spend a few weeks teaching us how not to die in alien environments. Then they dump us on a few different planets with next to no gear and tell us to elude capture. Few days later they pick us up, and then we do it again somewhere else in a totally different yet equally inhospitable environment.”

Alenko’s got that medic look in his eye again, but says nothing.

“So you’ve been eating MREs for ten weeks,” Pendergrass says, wrinkling her nose.

“They don’t give you those,” Shepard says with a wry smile.

“So whaddya eat?”

Shepard shrugs. “Whatever we find.”

“Don’t look like you found much,” Aslany muses.

The LC stares at his full plate, eyes flicking to the mashed potato glob again. Clay reaches out absently and wipes it up.

“The average soldier burns somewhere between five and six thousand calories a day during N training,” Shepard says.

“Fuck me,” Pendergrass replies with a chuckle. “That’s a lot of chow.”

“Betting you don’t find five k a day in a hostile environment,” Clay says. Just one of many reasons spec ops is unappealing. Food is nice. Even when it’s reconstituted mashed potatoes and vat grown, re-hydrated chicken cutlets.

“Shepard burns more.”

Every head but Shepard’s swivels in the LT’s direction.

“Because he’s a biotic,” Clay surmises.

Alenko nods.

“How much more?” Aslany asks.

Shepard twirls his fork. “’Bout twenty percent, give or take. More with an actual biotic display.”

“Holy shit,” Clay mutters under his breath. “And about how much you bet you scrounged in a day?”

Another shrug. “Guess it depends on how many calories there are in shit like tree bark.”

Fucking hell. No wonder Shepard looks wrecked. Tree bark, mother of christ. Clay wouldn’t fuck with this guy for any price.

“How the hell are you still standing?” Aslany demands. The look on Alenko’s face suggests he’s been holding that question back since Shepard’s retrieval.

A faint smirk crosses the LC’s face. “Spite’s a renewable resource.”

Aslany snorts. Pendergrass guffaws. Only Alenko doesn’t smile. His eyes are on Shepard’s plate, which remains untouched. It stays that way, too. A few minutes later, Shepard excuses himself and dumps a nearly full tray into the recycler.

What Clay wouldn’t give to see what goes on in that guy’s head. Though maybe he’s better off not knowing.

Once the LC is out of sight, Clay exhales. “Every time I think I’ve got a grasp on what kind of badass he is, he says shit like that.”

“Shoulda had a few of my salarian MREs,” Pendergrass muses. “You ever looked at salarian metabolism compared to humans?”

Not surprisingly, no one at the table says yes.

“One of those bars would prolly jump start him like a defib.”

“And give him a dehydration problem he wasn’t counting on, from the sounds of it,” Clay mutters.

Alenko frowns in the direction of Shepard’s departure, like he hadn’t heard a word any of them said. “He’s not eating.”

“Guessing it takes time to get your system back in line after something like that,” Clay points out.

“Maybe,” Alenko murmurs, more to himself than anyone else. “But I don’t think that’s it.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know.”

Clay might not be able to figure out Shepard, but he _has_ figured out Alenko. And when Alenko says ‘I don’t know,’ the unspoken part of that sentence is, _but I’m going to find out._

Alenko’s the kind of guy who gives too many fucks. And if there’s one thing he _can_ say about Shepard, it’s that he doesn’t give enough.

_Good luck, LT. You’re gonna need it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for part two, in which everyone universally decides, _fuck Benning._


	6. Fall From Your Ladder, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter with biotics, excellent risotto, and improvising while being shot at. 
> 
> AKA, _fuck Benning_.

_And what matters ain't the "Who's baddest", but the_  
_Ones who stop you fallin' from your ladder_

x

**Fall From Your Ladder, Part 2**

_10 March 2179, Interstellar Space, SSV Myeongnyang_

There’s a pattern to Shepard’s missed meals, and it’s not lack of appetite. It takes almost a week for Kaidan to come up with a theory, but after tonight he thinks he’s got one.

Twice in the last week he’s either abandoned his meal or came in and left without eating, like something about the mess triggers a fear/flight mechanism. Except Shepard is the last person Kaidan would ever expect to _have_ a fear/flight mechanism.

Which is why he’s cooking risotto a little before midnight, because that’s the other part of the pattern. The nights he skips dinner almost always correlate with the nights he winds up in the mess looking for something to eat. Whatever stress response triggers him at dinner never seems to faze him then.

Shepard shows up right on time, like it’s an unspoken appointment, and doesn’t appear surprised to see Kaidan already in the galley. Usually he either hovers nearby and offers some idle conversation, or sits at a table and goes through a stack of reports. Always, afterwards, he helps clean up.

Tonight’s a datapad night, to Kaidan’s disappointment. He kind of likes the casual chatter, even if it’s not about anything important.

“Menu didn’t seem to agree with you tonight,” Kaidan remarks, handing him a plate of risotto. It’s his mother’s recipe, one Kaidan only got her to cough up after a few rounds of guilt while he was sequestered on Jump Zero.

But talking about his mother is going to require a lot more than idle chatter, and probably a fair amount of liquor to boot.

Shepard takes the plate but not the bait, offering a grunt by way of response.

 _Well, can’t blame me for trying_.

Kaidan sits across from him with his own plate, hiding a smile when Shepard toys with the gravity well.

“So what’s this one?” Shepard asks, with a sniff.

Always a skeptic, but he always eats it. Be kind of nice to think it’s trust, but in reality Kaidan has yet to discover evidence that Shepard has any functioning tastebuds, especially not after the few times Kaidan’s gotten to the coffee pot once he’s already brewed something.

“Risotto,” Kaidan replies. “And in case you’re wondering, you should be very impressed by it. Lie if you have to. It’s a prized family recipe.”

“Understood,” Shepard says with a raised eyebrow. He gives his fork another speculative sniff and then puts the whole thing in his mouth.

Kaidan waits expectantly. He fixed it once or twice while Shepard was gone, and Mess Sergeant Navarro has been dogging him for the recipe ever since. They have an agreement: Kaidan feeds him recipes in return for adding a few contraband ingredients to the requisitions list and turning a blind eye to the late night cooking sessions. But he’s holding on to the risotto. That one’s his.

“Interesting,” Shepard says, chewing.

Kaidan clears his throat. “Well, I have to modify it a little on the ship. Parmesan isn’t fresh, butter isn’t real, and I had to get a little creative to substitute for the white wine, but—”

“Alenko.”

“What.”

“It’s good.”

“Thanks,” Kaidan says after a pause. Shepard digs his fork into the rest, thankfully too focused on the plate to notice Kaidan flush.

Not that he should feel too much pride creating a meal that someone who actually _likes_ MREs approves of. He feels a little guilty for having an ulterior motive tonight, but that’ll come later. First, Shepard just needs to _eat._

And he does. Cleans up the plate, to the point Kaidan dishes out another helping.

Shepard’s gaze wanders around the mess, taking in the cross-stitch wall Pendergrass had started a few weeks into the tour. Nearly a dozen squares cover it now, each with some cutesy design and often a catch phrase to go with it. The newest one came out of dinner a few nights ago, and features a smiling pizza slice with the accompanying script, _You wanna pizza me?_

“She’s been busy,” Shepard observes, that faint smile hedging the corner of his lips as he takes another stab with his fork.

“The engineering crew is in on it now,” Kaidan agrees. “And I think I saw her teaching Private Nives from the CIC the other day.”

He huffs, then finishes off his seconds and rummages in the galley for more.

“Getting your sea legs back?” Kaidan asks when he returns. Shepard doesn’t look quite like a zombie anymore, but he still doesn’t look like himself.

Shepard shrugs a moody shoulder. “Something like that. Always takes longer than it should to bounce back from N quals.”

“I’m surprised they let you do it.”

Shepard snorts. “Pretty sure they wouldn’t have, if they’d known anything about biotics when I got recommended. My trip through ICT wasn’t exactly what you’d call smooth. Been an uphill battle ever since. Without Anderson, probably never would have gotten the chance to fight it at all.”

“Why do you?” Kaidan asks, before he can stop himself.

A direct assault isn’t a game you play with the commander, not if you want to get anything out of him, but the question’s been burning up his brain. Shepard’s proven himself over and over again. Was one more designation really worth the toll on his body? Especially when the toll didn’t exactly appear cheap?

“Because it’s important,” Shepard says, much to Kaidan’s surprise. “It’s something I need to do. And no matter how dead I feel on my feet, if I had the chance to do it again I would in a heartbeat. If a piece of faulty wetware makes it harder, fuck it. I’ll figure out a way.”

“ _Faulty_?”

Kaidan’s tone is sharp, too sharp. Shepard’s expression immediately forms a brick wall.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Damnit.

Shepard’s talked about his implant before, but the word _faulty_ has never come up. Kaidan chews his lip, mentally running through the long list of side effects he’s aware of, from catastrophic seizures to minor thermoregulation irregularities, like Kaidan’s perpetually cold hands. Shepard’s demonstrated none of them.

_Faulty._

Faulty _how?_

But Kaidan knows better than to prod further. Instead he exhales and gets up from the table. Now that he’s tripped a failsafe, no telling how much longer Shepard will sit there. If he’s going to test his theory, now’s the time. He digs in the refrigerator for the mashed potato leftovers from dinner that night, and serves up a small bowl for himself. Once it’s heated, he sits back down at the table.

The response is almost instant. His entire body tightens like he’s bracing for a blow, and his eyes start shifting around the room, looking everywhere but the table. His grip tightens on the fork in his hand, but he doesn’t touch what’s left of the risotto.

It’s the mashed potatoes. Of all things. Every time Shepard’s had a stress reaction over a meal, mashed potatoes are on the menu. The restaurant in Arcturus. Dinners in the mess.

Without a word Kaidan gets back up and disposes of them, returning with more risotto instead. After a few minutes, Shepard’s grip on the fork loosens, his posture relaxes, and he takes a deep breath. Almost like he’s not even aware of it.

Shepard rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Kaidan asks with a curious tilt of his head. He’s the one who should be apologizing for experimenting on his XO to test a theory. Especially since he’s not sure what to do with the information now that he has it. Tell him? Tell Dr. Wendler?

Maybe he should have thought this through a little more.

“Didn’t mean to snap at you,” Shepard replies. “Not terribly polite to be a dick to the cook.”

Kaidan shrugs a shoulder. “I shouldn’t have pried. I just…have some firsthand experience with side effects.”

“It’s nothing.”

But the gravity well flips when he says it. A few minutes later, Shepard gets up and starts herding dishes into the recycler and wiping down the counter. Kaidan gets up to help. The silence between them isn’t quite comfortable, but it’s not uncomfortable either. He seems…lost in thought. When the cleanup is done, he wipes his hands on his pants.

“We’ve got a drop coming up.”

Kaidan’s brow furrows. “Where?”

“Euler System. Benning. I’ll debrief the team in the morning, but we’re already en route and should be boots on the ground by tomorrow night.”

Benning. That was on Arcturus’ doorstep, if he remembers right. “What’s the mission?”

“Terrorist attack on one of the starship repair facilities,” Shepard replies. “They suspect an inside job. They want us to flush out the ringleader and solve the problem.”

Terrorism strike at civilian ship docks? No wonder they want Shepard. Kaidan nods. “You up for it?”

Strike number two. Shepard’s expression slides straight into neutral. Boy, he’s sure stepping in shit tonight.

“It’s my job.”

Might be his job, but it’s also not a yes. Of all the XOs in the fleet, Kaidan had to land the one who seems committed to doing the enemy’s work for them. Now, however, is _not_ the time to point that out.

Kaidan nods. “Yes, sir. And we’ll get it done.”

The commander’s face relaxes a little. “Good. Thanks for the…what was it?”

“Risotto.”

“Right.” Shepard almost cracks a smile. “I liked it.” He heads off in the direction of his quarters.

 _Faulty_ wetware.

“Commander…”

Shepard stops mid-stride and looks back over his shoulder. The gravity well twists.

Kaidan draws a deep breath. Two strikes. Might as well go down swinging.

“I’m your medic. If there was something I needed to know before we go into the field again, you’d tell me, right?”

The pause before he answers is telling.

“I’m fine, Alenko.”

“Then I’ll see you at the debrief.”

“Good night, Lieutenant.”

~

While the team preps their gear for the drop, Kaidan makes a detour through the galley to look for Navarro. When he explains his request, he gets about the answer he expects.

“You want me to _what_?” Navarro asks skeptically.

“No mashed potatoes,” Kaidan repeats.

The burly chef exhales, crossing a pair of heavily tattooed arms over his chest. “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s one of the easiest stocks to get, keep, _and_ make.”

“I know.”

“People like mashed potatoes, Alenko. It’s practically a universal crowd pleaser.”

“I _know.”_

“Are…we being punished?”

He sighs. “No. But I need you to do it.”

Navarro’s skepticism only deepens. “And I suppose you aren’t going to tell me why.”

“Nope. Classified.”

Navarro sighs. “Sir, if this is an order….”

“Not an order,” Kaidan says. “You just have to trust me that you’re helping someone.”

“By not serving mashed potatoes.”

“Yes.” He puts a hand up when Navarro starts to protest. “I know how it sounds. You just have to trust me.”

Navarro opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“And I’ll give you my risotto recipe,” Kaidan concedes.

“Done,” Navarro says immediately.

“Thanks. If anyone asks about it, just send them to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

~

_11 March 2179, Arcturus Stream, Euler System, Benning_

It’s raining on Benning when they arrive. Kaidan revels in it a little; it’s been a long time since he’s seen a good, hard rain, but Shepard starts grumbling as soon as they get off the shuttle.

“Why the hell do people want to live where their head gets wet when they walk outside,” he mutters as they head to a prefab unit where an Alliance major is waiting with their intel.

“Rain ain’t so bad,” Pendergrass pipes up. “It’s cold rain that gets ya.”

Shepard merely grunts in reply. He’d only eaten a light breakfast that morning, and they’d spent lunch prepping for the drop. Kaidan had slipped him an energy bar and a juice packet on the shuttle ride down, but he has no idea if the commander actually ate it.

Benning itself is a garden world that’s got some scenery worth taking in. The peaks of an aging mountain range off in the distance are capped with green, and the heavy rain clouds hide the purple tinge that makes it feel more alien. Near the shipyards, an impressive waterfall carves through one of the foothills, where it meets a river winding around the outskirts of the settlement. Not quite English Bay, but probably a nice place to spend an afternoon to clear your head. The climate is moderate, gravity only a little heavier than Earth’s, and the colony is established enough that many of the prefabs are giving way to construction of permanent buildings.

Which makes acts of terrorism all the more devastating.

The attack in question is even bigger than Kaidan expected. Someone had gotten into a warehouse off the shipyard storing GUARDIAN heat sinks and rigged them to overheat. One simple detonation of the casing with a jury-rigged explosive released all the waste heat at once, vaporizing twenty-four workers and destroying everything in the warehouse without a heat shield. At least the deaths were quick.

The commander’s got the kind of look in his eye that suggests the perpetrators aren’t going to enjoy the repercussions. When they tell someone like Shepard to bring them in dead or alive, the expectation isn’t going to be the latter.

It takes three days to get a solid lead, and Shepard works himself to the bone all three of those days. Kaidan has to chase him down for meals, goad him into getting some rest. It’s a window into what must have got him through N5. Once Shepard has his teeth sunk into something, it’s almost impossible to get him to let go.

The hard work pays off, at least. They wind up with two targets, both former Alliance, which doesn’t exactly help anyone’s blood pressure. Shepard sends Kaidan and Aslany after the first, a civilian contractor named Radic, who works in requisitions, had easy access to the explosives used on the casing, and a bad alibi.

Shepard takes Beaudoin and Pendergrass after the second target, an engineer named Zanetti, who had jurisdiction over the warehouse where the attack took place and ample opportunity to rig the GUARDIAN sinks. Both suspects have possible ties to the Colonial Reform Party, an anti-colonization organization particularly offended by expansion into the Traverse. Zanetti had bailed on the Alliance after putting boots on the ground at Mindoir.

Just so happens that one of the freighters currently in drydock runs supplies to the Traverse, and a lot of the equipment in the torched warehouse was designated for the retrofits.

It should be as easy as showing up to apprehend both next time they report in for a shift and interrogate until they’ve got a list of co-conspirators.

 _Should_ be that easy. Problem is, nothing that involves Shepard ever goes down easy.

A light but steady rain begins to fall when Kaidan and Aslany approach the requisitions building by the shipyard. Before they can get there, the comm explodes with chaos. Shepard hollers orders and Pendergrass starts yelling what might be salarian expletives. Apparently Zanetti took exception to being arrested.

Radic doesn’t seem to be a fan, either. Kaidan’s not even surprised when his kinetic shields dimple under the impact of a bullet, though Aslany sure takes it personally. She takes it _really_ personally when the first grenade goes off.

Kaidan’s corona flares, a beacon of bright blue under the gray skies, as the next grenade detonates and sends shrapnel flying. He grabs Aslany by the arm and drags her into the closest prefab, where a group of dock workers trying to have lunch stare in shock as a glass window overlooking the street shatters.

“Get down!” Kaidan yells, waving an arm. Each of the civilians drop to the floor. “This place have a back door?”

One of them nods, eyes wide with fear. Aslany pops up, rifle aimed out the window, and lays on the trigger.

“Go,” Kaidan orders with a gesture. “Stay down.”

“ _Alenko. You still intact over there?”_ Shepard calls over the comm as the civilians crawl their way out. Aslany’s rifle chatters in the background.

“Yep. It got hot, but we’re handling it.” He hopes. “Radic had friends and they don’t like us.”

 _“Yeah, about the same on our end.”_ A hail of gunfire crackles over the comm. _“Someone inside the Alliance tipped them off. Guess they chose martyrdom over escape. Take ‘em out, and try to minimize the damage. I’d hate to actually give them what they want.”_

“On it.” Kaidan does a quick check of the squad’s biofeeds. “Commander, your glucose flag’s been triggered. You all right?”

 _“Fine,”_ comes the disgruntled reply, coupled with a dismayed cry that thankfully doesn’t sound familiar. On Kaidan’s HUD, Shepard’s amp spikes hot. “ _Just follow your orders and make sure Radic’s day is worse than ours.”_

“Aye, sir.”

Another grenade careens through the window.

“ _Bokhoresh!”_ Aslany yells, scooping it in her own hand and chucking it back. It detonates halfway through the return trip. Her kinetic shields complain, but hold. Kaidan digs a tech mine out of his hip compartment, programs an overload charge and lobs it. The moment the overheat klaxons wail, Aslany lines up a shot, this time with a sniper rifle.

Radic and his supporters may have some ordinance to work with, but whoever their Alliance connection is hadn’t managed to scrounge them proper combat armor. Or helmets.

That’s at least one person who’s having a _much_ worse day than Kaidan is.

“You’re awfully calm considering how fast things went to shit,” Aslany comments as she reaches for her rifle again.

He takes quick stock of the biofeeds to make sure everyone is still standing, not that he can do much for Shepard’s team on the other side of the port. In addition to the glucose flag, Shepard’s heart rate reads high. But then again, so does everyone’s. _They’re in combat, of course it’s high._ Aside from that, everything is green.

“Shepard’s back,” Kaidan says with a shrug. “How did we think this was gonna go?”

~

“You know what we did while you were gone?” Clay asks as he takes shelter behind a steel drum outside a row of prefab offices lining the shipyard. A light rain tamps down smoke from the exchange of grenades, forcing him to rely on his HUD more than his vision. Problem is, half their assailants aren’t wearing armor, which means his combat scanner only flags a few enemy transponders.

Shepard leans his head back against the exterior of one of the prefabs, waiting for the latest volley of bullets to subside. He actually looks a little winded, to Clay’s surprise, but also completely unconcerned about the fact they’ve been ambushed, which surprises him…considerably less.

“No. What did you do?” Shepard’s hand shakes as he checks his heat sinks. He curls it into a fist and scowls at it.

“Played poker, cleaned rifles, shot pool. _Didn’t_ get shot at.”

“Yeah, it was _boring_ ,” Pendergrass declares before readying the drone that is presumably Asshole’s descendant. She’d programmed it with what _she_ calls a taser, and Clay calls the fist of Zeus.

“Good thing I came back then,” Shepard muses, before rising out of cover with his entire body wreathed in blue fire.

The smirk on his face as he strides into violence is something Clay never wants to get used to.

The prefab offices form a u-shape around a central courtyard that sits in a depression, forcing anyone who wants entry to descend a hill and walk right into a convenient kill box. No doubt exactly why Zanetti chose to hide here. His first mistake was letting his zealots open fire before the LC made it into the courtyard, giving away the element of surprise. His second was thinking that someone like Shepard wouldn’t walk right into a kill box with his middle finger up and somehow be the one to force the enemy to blink first.

Which is exactly what happens. Shepard descends into the courtyard burning like a torch in the gloom. Bullets send ripples through the snarling flames as the biotic barrier bleeds off the kinetic energy. Perhaps out of spite, Shepard pulls back one arm like he’s about to throw a pitch, only instead of a ball he hurls a coil of dark energy at whichever unfortunate terrorist head he sees first.

It’s a good damn thing Alenko is on the other side of the shipyard. If he could see Shepard casually taking fire from all sides just to provide a distraction he’d strangle the LC with his bare hands.

While their eyes are on Shepard, Pendergrass puts her drone to work, grinning wide enough to show her teeth even through her faceplate.

“Told you I remembered the specs,” she says, eyes following the drone as it bobs over the terrain and scoots along the prefabs, tasing everything in its path. Anyone with kinetic shielding winds up with overloaded emitters. Anyone without shielding winds up with a singed hole in their chest.

“Still named Asshole?”

“Nope. I named her Fuck You,” Pendergrass says proudly.

Clay takes aim with a sniper rifle. Zanetti seems to have at least tried to instill some Alliance training in them – they aren’t making themselves easy targets – but he manages to nail one of the fuckers whose shields fell victim to Fuck You. One of out of a nice, even dozen.

One, while Shepard takes out at least three as he burns down the middle.

_“Commander!”_

Alenko’s voice shouts over the comm, sharp with anger rather than panic. Whatever he’s handling on his end, apparently it’s not enough to distract him from noticing Shepard being, well… _Shepard._ Clay has no idea what biotic displays do to biofeeds, but whatever it is, the LT isn’t having it.

“He’s, uh, a little busy, sir,” Clay offers.

“ _What the hell is he doing?”_

“Bein’ him. Don’t worry. He’s got it under control. I think. But if the Alliance wants to send backup our way, I wouldn’t say no.”

_“They deployed a unit to evacuate civilians in the area and one to protect the shipyard, so the locals are a little busy. But we got Radic. Heading to you now.”_

“It’s gettin’ hot down there,” Pendergrass observes as Shepard banks up a ramp towards a prefab in the corner of the U and puts his shotgun down a guy’s throat. “Fuck You’s only got so much juice.”

“That’s a kill box, Kara, and we don’t have magic space powers.”

“Maybe not. But, uh, he don’t look so good.”

Clay narrows his eyes and directs his gaze back to the LC. Shepard’s still got the shotgun in one arm, but the other braces against the entrance to the prefab, no corona in sight.

_Mierda._

“Commander,” he says into the comm. “You all right?”

“ _Pushing towards Zanetti. Think he’s in the next prefab. Keep picking them off where you can.”_

Clay frowns. He hadn’t said _yes_.

“We need to get to him without dying. Got any ideas?”

Pendergrass grins. “Of course I have ideas. If we can’t go through the middle, just gotta make our own hole.” She whips out her omnitool, eyes on the metal wall of the closest prefab. There’s no entrance from their location outside the courtyard.

“How are you making a hole, exactly?” Clay asks.

“Thermite.” She cackles. “Buckle up, buttercup.”

She sprays a fine liquid mist at the metal. Instantly it glows red, alloys peeling back as they disintegrate, revealing a stunned woman holding a pistol and wearing only a construction grade kinetic shield. Clay raises his rifle, and she drops the pistol, putting her hands up.

If only the rest of Zanetti’s goons were so amenable.

~

Kaidan breaks into a run as the gunfire grows louder. The prefab offices housing Zanetti are just over the next rise. Rain spatters his faceplate, blurring the scenery but not the biofeeds scrolling across his HUD. Shepard’s heart rate is in the stratosphere now, his glucose flag red and blinking.

“We have to hurry,” he calls to Aslany, who’s in step right behind him, rifle out.

She doesn’t question, just double times it as Kaidan speaks into the comm.

“Commander, can you hear me?”

_“Little busy.”_

“Find some cover, right now, before you fall down.”

_“I’m fine, Lieutenant, just do your job.”_

“I _am_ doing my job, and you’re not fine. Bunker down and wait for backup. We’re almost there.”

_“Negative. Zanetti’s in my sights.”_

Kaidan swears. “Beaudoin, do you have eyes on Shepard?”

“ _Working on it, sir.”_

 _“_ Find him and protect him, you got that?”

_“What do you think we’ve been trying to do?”_

They crest the hill right as Shepard’s biofeeds crash.

 _“Holy shit, he’s down!”_ Pendergrass cries.

Kaidan bolts, swearing some more, heedless of all flags on his HUD save one: the blinking transponder marking Shepard’s location.

“Can you get to him?” he hollers into the comm.

“ _Trying to draw their fire, hang on!”_

Kaidan skids to a halt at the top of the slope leading down into the courtyard as a sniper bullet catches him in the chest. He grunts and staggers backwards, shields blooming with a ripple as the kinetic energy from the slug drains away, emitters wailing in protest.

“Alenko!” Aslany yells, sniper rifle already out. She fires it with a sharp _crack_. In the murk he can’t tell if Aslany’s bullet finds its mark. He just trusts that it does.

Aslany grabs his arm and yanks him down behind a concrete barricade meant to keep people away from the sharp drop in elevation into the courtyard.

“Did you know you don’t have to _stop_ being a soldier to be a medic?” she hisses.

She’s right, and he’ll owe her an apology later, but right now Shepard is down, under enemy fire, and out of reach.

“ _Sir, we’re going after him,”_ Beaudoin advises.

The sounds of a scuffle echo over Pendergrass’ comm line. “ _Get_ out _of my way or I will fuck you_ up, _you bag of dicks…ha! Eat it. Atta girl, Fuck You._ ”

More scuffling, followed by a crackle. Kaidan swallows, eyes glued to the biofeeds.

“ _We’ve got him!”_ Beaudoin calls out. _“But Zanetti’s right on us, and he’s got backup. We’re pinned.”_

“Where are you?” Kaidan demands.

_“Far side of the compound, a, ah, kitchenette of some kind.”_

_“Yeah, we’re the friendlies hiding over by the sink,”_ Pendergrass adds _. “The, uh, the sink of friendship.”_

Aslany snorts.

 _“_ Hold position,” Kaidan orders. “We’re coming. Somehow.”

_“Oh! I made a hole in case you don’t want to die.”_

Aslany taps his shoulder and points towards the jagged hole in the side of the closest prefab.

 _“Alenko,”_ Beaudoin says. _“He’s out cold. What do I do?”_

“Extend one of his arms out at a right angle, palm up,” Kaidan calls as he steps through the impromptu hole and into the prefab, where they find a woman zip-tied to a column. Kaidan strides past her, while Aslany gives her a scowl. “Fold the other arm and put his hand on the cheek closest to you. Keep it there. It should support his head.”

Down a dark hallway. Someone had thought it might help to shut off power inside the prefab, but Shepard’s transponder still reads loud and clear, down at the end of the row of offices and to the right.

“ _…okay, I think I got it_.”

“Good. Bend the knee farthest from you at a right angle and put him on his side.”

_“Done.”_

A laser dot lands on his head, but Aslany pulls the trigger of her rifle before Kaidan can react. The would-be sniper hits the ground with a thud. Kaidan steps over him on the way through.

“Tilt his head back to keep his airway open. I’m almost there.”

Gunfire erupts. Zanetti must have decided this was a good time to escape. Kaidan’s corona flares, forming a shield of kinetic energy that writhes under a hail of bullets. Aslany halts behind him and jerks her head towards the open doorway to the right that leads back out into the courtyard.

“I’ll draw their fire and keep ‘em in here,” she says. “You sneak out and around.”

“Aslany—"

 _“Go._ Got your back. Pendergrass, I could use Fuck You. Beaudoin, if you wanna get off your ass, pretty sure we can flank some motherfuckers and give ‘em a bad day.”

Kaidan draws a deep breath and ducks back outside, where rain drills against his helmet and water splashes under his feet. Shepard’s heart rate is irregular, but still beating, and so far no sign of a hardsuit breach. At least he hasn’t been shot.

A stray bullet ricochets off his biotic shield. Pendergrass’ drone drifts past a window on his left, lazily tasing everything in its path. An assault rifle starts to chatter – Beaudoin, hopefully – discordant against the steady pattern of the rain.

Kaidan runs up another ramp into a prefab just as a grenade goes off, shorting out his shield emitters. The electrical shock rattles him enough he drops his biotic barrier, just in time for a slug to puncture the ablative in his right shoulder. He swears under his breath and dives under a table, suit wailing a breach alarm. Pain blooms in his shoulder. The medical exoskeleton hisses as it ejects a dose of medigel, cool and clammy over his skin. Nothing vital punctured, but he’ll put his targeting VI to the test if he wants to shoot anything.

The room he’s landed in has a table and chairs, stove, oven and some cabinets. _Kitchenette._ At least he’s in the right building. Where’s the damn sink?

“Alenko!”

_There._

He calls upon his corona again and makes a break for it, shedding bullets as he goes. Pendergrass is right, they’re pinned. No time to worry about that now.

Shepard lies on the ground, hidden behind an island with a stainless steel sink, in the position Kaidan had instructed. Pendergrass kneels beside him, pistol out, grenade in hand.

“I’m low,” she says when Kaidan arrives. “I lobbed most of what I had to get Beaudoin out. Sorry I singed you.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Kaidan says, kneeling behind Shepard, pulling out his medkit and digging for a glucagon drug pack. Shepard’s heart rate is still erratic, right along with his breathing.

“What the hell happened to him?” she asks. “He just fucking _fell down_.”

“His blood sugar crashed,” Kaidan says, pressing fingers against the meexo access point behind Shepard’s left shoulder plate. After entering the override code, he pops the seal, loads the drug pack, then opens his omnitool authorize the glucagon.

“This should get him conscious, but we still have to get him on his feet. Don’t think an energy bar is gonna do it.”

Pendergrass perks up. “I might have a solution for that.” She digs a small package out of her hip compartment and hands it over. “Salarian MRE.”

He recalls her comments in the mess the other day. “Jump start him like a defib, huh?”

She nods. He claps her on the shoulder and chuckles. “Good thinking. Better than nothing.”

Shepard stirs. Kaidan puts a steadying hand on his arm.

“Commander, you with us?”

He grunts and rolls onto his back towards Kaidan, one arm waving feebly. Kaidan catches it and plants it against Shepard’s chest.

“Easy,” Kaidan says gently. “Give it a second.”

Shepard tries to sit up, but Kaidan holds him down, his right shoulder throbbing with the effort. A volley of bullets strike the sink and send shards of metal flying. Kaidan shields Shepard with his body as Pendergrass lobs another grenade.

“Only got one more,” she mutters.

“What’re…what?” Shepard’s words slur.

“You passed out,” Kaidan tells him, then maneuvers behind Shepard and hooks him by the shoulders, leveraging him into a seated position with his back against the island. “Gotta get you up on your feet so we can get you out of here.”

“Zanetti,” Shepard mumbles.

 _“Wow,_ he has a one-track mind,” Pendergrass muses, aiming her omnitool and spraying a concentrated burst of thermite around the island and into the open. Someone screams.

Kaidan kneels in front of Shepard, feels around for the seals of the commander’s helmet and releases them with a snick before tugging it off. His eyes are hazy and unfocused, but he’s _awake_ , so Kaidan unwraps the MRE and presses it into Shepard’s hand.

“I need you to eat this. Gotta get you on your feet so we can get out of here.”

Shepard stares at the nutrient block in his hand. For half a second Kaidan thinks he’s actually going to argue, but then he bites into a corner.

“Sitrep,” he says.

“Aslany and Beaudoin are taking most of the heat. Only a couple left on us. Not sure where Zanetti is, but he’s got no escape route.”

Kaidan takes another look at the biofeeds. Aslany and Beaudoin are still online, and Shepard’s heart rate is slowly coming back under control. He’s pale and his hands shake, but he’s more lucid than he was a minute ago.

“Stupid place to make a stand,” Shepard mutters. “He used to be a staff commander. He should know better.”

“Yeah, well, some people fail up.”

Shepard’s laugh is weak, but it’s something.

“Pendergrass, we need an exit plan,” Kaidan says. “Any ideas?”

She tilts her head thoughtfully. “How do you feel about exploding stoves?”

“I’d rather not be _in_ that explosion if I can help it.”

She holds up her last grenade. “Then how about a good old-fashioned chuck and run _before_ the stove explodes?”

“We have to get Zanetti,” Shepard argues.

“We have to get you out of here,” Kaidan argues back. “Can you stand?”

Shepard nods, tossing the MRE wrapper and re-securing his helmet. “I think so.”

“Then we’re going. Pendergrass, unleash bedlam.”

“My favorite words,” she says with a grin.

She fiddles with the gas line to the stove, then gives the thumbs up. When Kaidan nods, she lets the last grenade fly. It detonates in a shower of sparks, mixed with a few dismayed yells and an overheat klaxon. Kaidan rises, pulls Shepard to his feet and slips the commander’s arm around his neck.

“Let’s go!”

As they back towards the exit, Pendergrass fires her pistol. The stove ignites, sending flames gushing toward the ceiling.

“Aslany,” Kaidan calls into the comm, “we’re on our way out!”

“ _Copy that. Still a couple assholes on their feet protecting Zanetti, but they gotta go through us._ ”

It takes both of them to support Shepard’s weight, Kaidan on the left and Pendergrass on his right. They dash as quick as they can manage towards the far side of the courtyard and almost make it up the hill before another barrage of gunfire comes from Kaidan' left. He staggers under the impact, shields quickly hitting saturation. Shepard lets go of Pendergrass, reaches across Kaidan’s chest, yanks the pistol out of the holster on his hip, aims and empties the clip.

“Gotta watch your left flank,” he mumbles as Pendergrass leans in to support him once again.

“You really are the worst,” Kaidan says before they stagger up the hill.

They almost stumble right into Zanetti, who looks like his day is going about as well as Kaidan’s. Unlike some of his followers he’s wearing combat armor, but the chestplate is badly singed, his helmet is cracked, and his shield emitters give off an acrid stench. He aims a shotgun at Shepard’s head. Kaidan pushes to the front, arms spread wide.

“If I go down,” Zanetti says, “so do you.”

“Hey asshole,” another voice calls from Kaidan’s right. Aslany leans out a shattered window, sniper rifle poised.

Zanetti turns his head.

“That’s my fucking squad.”

The cracks in Zanetti’s helmet do nothing to stop the bullet. Bone and gray matter explode across the inside of his faceplate as he drops to the ground.

“Fuck yeah!” Pendergrass crows.

Aslany jogs out of the prefab, Beaudoin close behind her. Each have some scouring on their armor and a few places where the ablative will need replacing, but none the worse for wear.

“Hostiles contained, sir,” she reports, throwing a quick salute.

Shepard turns his head, still supported between Pendergrass and Kaidan, and gives Aslany an appreciative nod. “Nice work, Private.”

She tries to hide it, but a slow smile spreads across her face.

“There was one casualty,” Beaudoin says, with a reluctant look at Pendergrass. “Fuck You bit it pretty hard, but she went down swinging. Saved my ass.”

Pendergrass’ eyes flick to her feet, but she manages a smile. “That’s ok. Squad comes first, right?”

“Yeah,” Beaudoin says with a sympathetic smile, and claps her on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

~

The battered squad gets a pass on sorting out the collateral damage and gets sent straight back to the ship. Kaidan says nothing on the shuttle ride back, and nothing as Shepard gets carted straight to Dr. Wendler. But the moment she cuts him loose Kaidan is waiting, still wearing the sweat-stained t-shirt he’d had on under his hardsuit.

“What the hell happened down there?” he demands.

Shepard pulls up short halfway to the locker room and turns his directed energy weapon gaze right at Kaidan, who meets it head on.

“My cabin,” Shepard growls. “Now.”

Kaidan follows him to the XO cabin near the barracks, just far enough away to start wondering if picking a fight with Shepard is about to cost him his career. But he’s in it now, so when the door slides closed behind them, he unloads.

“You ignored _every_ sign. Your suit flags, my recommendations, and don’t you _dare_ say you didn’t feel anything. Someone else might believe you, but this is _me_ you’re talking to. You can’t bullshit another biotic. Did you even eat something this morning, _knowing_ it was a possibility we were going to wind up in a combat zone?”

“I redlined,” Shepard snaps. “I saw a chance to take him out, and I wasn’t about to give it up.”

“And look what happened. Pendergrass and Beaudoin nearly got killed trying to protect you, and I had to leave Aslany without backup to get to you.”

“She—”

“You have a _team,_ Shepard. We work together. I can’t keep you alive if you don’t _listen_ to me.”

“ _Listen_ to you?” Shepard interjects. “What more do you want from me? You’re on my case every time we suit up. I can’t make a damned move without you second guessing it, from what I eat to how I interact with the squad to whether or not I’m good enough for the N program. Why is _nothing_ I do enough for you?”

Kaidan’s eyes widen. “Enough for _me?_ Why…? No. That’s not—”

“--What then? You question me every fucking time I turn around. So what is it?”

“I _worry_ about you!” Kaidan exclaims with a wave of his hand, and that actually stuns Shepard to silence. “Hell, _some_ one's got to, because you sure as hell don't.”

Shepard says nothing. Kaidan rakes a hand through his disheveled hair and starts to pace.

“You almost died today because you wouldn’t look after yourself. I…I don’t know what else to do to convince you it’s not all on you to get the job done _._ It’s on _us.”_

Shepard continues to stare, but now his focus is on Kaidan’s shoulder. His brow furrows as he closes the gap between them, thumb brushing against the right sleeve of his shirt where a bloodstain seeps through the cloth.

“You’re bleeding,” Shepard says.

“It’s fine.”

“You got shot.”

“It’s _fine._ ” Kaidan pulls away, wincing as the slab of medigel on his skin pulls tight and a bolt of pain shoots across his chest. “I triaged it, and because I actually do look out for myself, I’m going by the doc when we’re done. I owe her twenty credits.”

“ _Are_ we done?” Shepard asks, but his voice is quiet, and there’s something…hesitant in it. Like he’s talking about a lot more than just this conversation.

Kaidan hesitates. “That’s up to you, I guess.” When Shepard doesn’t answer, he sighs. “Look. You’re my XO, sure, but…as hard as you make it, I assumed at this point it’s not out of line to call you my friend. A friend whose well-being matters to me. If that’s a bad assumption…I guess I need to know.”

Shepard swallows, and perhaps for the first time since they’ve met avoids looking him in the eye.

“Sorry, sir. I overstepped.” Kaidan heads for the door.

“Alenko,” Shepard calls after him. “Wait.”

Kaidan turns.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not…” He pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not that easy to get along with.”

“Shepard.”

“No one _worries_ about me.” He spits the words out like they’re offensive. “Why should they? They trained me for this. It’s what I’m here for.”

 _Because you need it._ “Anderson does.”

“That’s different. Anderson’s all I’ve got, and he’s not a friend. He’s…whatever he is.”

“So then what is this?” Kaidan gestures between himself and Shepard. “ _This._ You and me.”

“Hell if I know,” Shepard mutters.

“Ok,” Kaidan says slowly, heart pounding. “If that’s how you want it, that’s where we’ll leave it. Strictly professional. But if that’s not what you want…I’ll be cooking in the galley at 23:00 tomorrow. All you have to do is show up.”

Shepard’s nod is so slight Kaidan might have imagined it. He doesn’t wait to be told to leave. When the door closes behind him, he releases a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding.

_No one worries about me._

Kaidan heads for the medbay, putting a hand to his shoulder, which is just now beginning to throb.

_I do._

~

At 23:00 sharp the following evening, Kaidan puts a skillet on the stove and starts dicing onions and a couple breasts of chicken, trying and failing to keep his eyes away from entrance to the galley. Just as he adds a handful of green chiles to the sauteing onions, the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

Shepard leans a shoulder against the fridge, twisting kinetic energy around in his fingers. Kaidan’s heart rate quickens a little.

“So what is it tonight?” Shepard asks.

“Enchiladas,” Kaidan replies, reaching for the cutting board filled with the diced chicken. “Secret’s in the sauce. Have to make it from scratch.”

“Pretty sure I wouldn’t bother to make something from scratch when I can pour it out of a can.”

“What can I say. Guess I figure the reward is worth the effort.” He feels Shepard’s eyes on him without turning his head.

“Yeah. That sounds like you.”

Kaidan huffs. The chicken sizzles in the skillet. While it cooks, he starts making a roux with flour and oil in a separate saucepan. Shepard watches him in comfortable silence, still toying with the gravity well.

“I lied to you the other day.”

Kaidan pauses in the middle of pouring chicken stock into the sauce. “Oh?”

“You asked if there was an issue with my implant. I said it was nothing. But it _is_ something. And after yesterday…you deserve to know what it is.”

Kaidan finishes pouring and sets the container down, giving Shepard his full attention.

Shepard taps his fingers against the counter. “I did eat yesterday before the fight.” He holds up his hands at Kaidan’s skeptical look. “I did. I swear. But…my glucose and electrolyte levels don’t regulate like they should. And I’m not talking the kind of problem _every_ biotic has. This is different. You eat light and put on a biotic display you get the shakes, right?”

Kaidan nods.

“If I do it…Benning happens. I crash. Hell, sometimes I feel it even without a biotic display. And…I’m not good at knowing my limits.”

So many pieces fall into place. The shaking hands. The glucose flags that always trigger. All those casual intrusions into the gravity well that can only make it worse. All those _massive_ biotic displays. No wonder he lost so much weight at SERE. Throw in a trauma response to one of the most common staples served on Alliance ships, and it’s a wonder it took him this long to hit a wall.

Shepard nods, as if reading his mind. “I told you ICT didn’t go smoothly. That was…an understatement. I lost consciousness out in the field during a drill and they had to airlift me out. I almost died, and they kicked me out of the program.”

“Hell,” Kaidan murmurs, then jerks his attention back to the chicken when he smells it singing. “If they washed you out, how’d you get back in?”

“Anderson advocated for me,” Shepard replies. “He didn’t want to. Told me I was an idiot for risking my life again, but I insisted. Took a lot to convince him I could handle it now that I knew what to expect, but eventually he caved and put some pressure on the brass to give me another shot.”

“Why?” Kaidan asks after a moment.

“Why did he cave?”

“No. Why was it so important to get another shot?” _How could it possibly be worth your life?_

Shepard chews the inside of his lip, turning the question over in his mind. First time Kaidan’s been able to watch the gears turn.

“You don’t get to be the son of Hannah Shepard and fail.” He furrows his brow and waves a hand, like he wishes he hadn’t said it. “I’d wanted it since I was fourteen, and Anderson put his ass on the line to make sure I got the shot. Wasn’t going to fuck that up.”

Kaidan’s heart twists. “Ok. How, then? The second time around, I mean. How did you make it through?”

He smiles that lopsided smile that makes him look so _human_. “Honestly? Cheated a little. Snuck in some contraband here and there. Bargained with a few recruits and took on more weight for my pack in exchange for calories. MREs, whatever I could get my hands on.”

“Because you could make your rucksack lighter.”

“Yeah. Tough line to walk, because the more I use the gravity well, the more I need to eat. But. I found a balance that worked. Made it through by the skin of my teeth, but I made it.”

“And SERE…”

“SERE sucked,” he says bluntly. “But I meant it when I said it was worth it. This is what I’m good at, Alenko. Maybe the only thing I’m good at. I’m not letting a piece of wetware stop me.”

“You sell yourself short,” Kaidan says.

“Says the gourmet cook who could take out the best poker players in the galaxy.”

Kaidan huffs. “For what it’s worth…I never meant to suggest I didn’t think you could do it. You’re the best soldier I’ve ever met. I just…”

“Worry,” Shepard supplies, expression softening.

Kaidan nods.

“I, uh, admit it’s kind of…nice. To know someone does.” He waits for Kaidan to meet his gaze. “I should have told you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He digs his toe at the deckplates. “Because the Butcher of Torfan can’t have that kind of weakness. I already have a target on my back the size of a star system. Do you know what the batarians might do if they knew offing me is as simple as sticking me with a syringe full of insulin? They could drop me right there on the street without so much as pulling a gun.”

“Shepard.” The ease with which he accepts his own nickname is hard to accept sometimes.

“The Alliance needs the Butcher,” Shepard says, almost gently. “So that’s what they get. It is what it is. I’m good with it. But…you’re right. Not telling you, and not…taking care of myself put the team in danger. I should have listened to you.”

“Whatever ladder you climb, we’re behind you,” Kaidan tells him. “But if you fall off, you take the rest of us with you on the way down. It’s our job to make sure you stay on the ladder.”

“Yeah,” he says after a moment, eyes drifting to the cross-stitch wall. “Okay.”

“Hey.” When Shepard meets his gaze, Kaidan smiles. “Thanks for telling me.”

The smile he gets back reminds him of dinner on Arcturus. _Real_.

It’s a good smile.

Takes a minute to get his focus back on the enchiladas, but he manages to finish prepping them without ruining the whole batch. Kaidan is pulling the pan out of the oven when Beaudoin sticks his head into the mess.

“I smell food. _¡A huevo!_ Are those enchiladas?”

“They are,” Kaidan replies.

“We’re having a late night showing of some really bad salarian and turian buddy cop movie in the lounge. Lucky you, price of admission happens to be enchiladas.”

Kaidan raises an eyebrow and glances at Shepard, who looks a lot more intrigued than he would have expected.

“Is it _In Two Deep_?”

Beaudoin’s eyes widen a little. “Uh…yeah. How did you know?”

“Because it’s a classic. We’ll be there in five.”

Beaudoin looks at Shepard like he’s grown six heads before nodding and turning back toward the lounge. Kaidan starts to chuckle.

“What?” Shepard demands when he notices Kaidan’s expression.

“I don’t know what _In Two Deep_ is, but I have this terrible suspicion your taste in movies is as bad as your taste in coffee.”

“What’s wrong with my coffee?”

“Everything,” Kaidan informs him, spooning sauce over the enchiladas. “Literally everything. Here, grab some plates.”

“Wait, so does this ‘you and me’ thing just mean you have free rein to give me shit?”

“It might.”

“You’re the worst,” Shepard grumbles as they carry the food into the lounge, where Aslany drapes over a chair, Beaudoin takes up one end of the couch, and Pendergrass sits cross-legged on the floor working on a cross-stitch. Kaidan makes out the words “sink of friendship” on it.

“Oh hey, squad’s all here,” she says brightly.

“With food,” Beaudoin concurs.

Kaidan sets the tray of enchiladas on a coffee table and takes a seat on the couch next to Beaudoin, who immediately dishes himself up a plate. Shepard sits down next to Kaidan, twirling the gravity well instead of helping himself.

“I owe all of you an explanation,” he says as the others dig into the enchiladas. They all stop and look at him. Shepard draws a deep breath. “I have a medical condition. Has to do with my implant. I got irresponsible with it down on Benning and put you all in danger. I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again.”

At first no one says anything. Then Aslany shrugs.

“I got the kill shot on Zanetti. Worked out for me.”

“I’m easily bought,” Beaudoin says around a mouthful of enchilada. “Apology accepted.”

“Besides,” Pendergrass says, “I could smell the latrine halfway across the crew deck today. Pretty sure you paid the price for eating my MREs and busting my bot.”

“Is _that_ why my guts hate me right now,” Shepard muses.

Pendergrass grins, then gets up off the floor and lays her newest cross-stitch in Shepard’s lap. In fancy script it reads, _Spite is a renewable resource,_ encased under a rainbow.

“Squad’s family,” Pendergrass says. “Not something you earn. It just _is_. Who’s got the movie?”

Shepard stares at the cloth resting on his knee, then looks around the room at them all, genuinely taken aback. Beaudoin gives Pendergrass a proud smile as Aslany activates the holo projector and queues the movie up. Just from the title crawl, it looks even worse than Kaidan expects it to be. He puts an enchilada on a plate and hands it to Shepard, who traces the lettering on the cross-stitch with a finger.

“Hey,” Kaidan says, nudging his shoulder until he looks up. Shepard sets the cross-stitch aside and takes the plate with an appreciative nod.

_(Never really thought of home as a place. It’s people.)_

Kaidan smiles.

“Welcome home, Shepard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Bokhoresh_ \- Eat it  
>  _Mierda_ \- Shit  
>  _¡A huevo!_ \- Hell yes
> 
> All translation errors are mine!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> If you want to flail about mshenko, feel free to come find me on tumblr at swaps55.tumblr.com. I love to flail.


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